Defiance
by thegraytigress
Summary: The Enchantress takes Steve, mind, body, and soul. The Avengers take him back.


**DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** M (for language, violence, adult situations, descriptions of rape)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is an edited version of this story, with much of the darker, heavier stuff removed to fit in with the rating scheme here on FanFiction. I think the story still makes sense without those parts. The story is posted in its entirety on AO3 if you would prefer to read it there.

I started writing this story after the _Agents of SHIELD_ episode "Yes Men" aired. Without going into spoilers, I watched that episode and thought the same thing I thought after most episodes of that show, namely why send in Coulson's team and a bunch of regular agents when you've got the Avengers around. Which made me think that what happened to Ward would have never happened to Steve, since he's Captain America and generally immune to mind-altering magic and substances. Which then made me wonder how Lorelei would have taken to that. Which then led to this, which really got away from me. This is very dark and deals with some really disturbing subject matter (for those of you who have read my other stories, you know what I mean by dark, but this is probably the worst). Despite the subject matter, this story is really about overcoming an extremely harrowing experience with the support of friends and family, hence the title.

Still, I need to put it up front because I really don't want to be responsible for upsetting anyone. So here it is. **WARNING:** this story contains rape. If that upsets you, please, _please_ don't read it. I also don't pretend to be an expert on any of this. It's just my take on what Steve's recovery from a horrible experience like this might be like.

That being said, this also delves into Steve/Natasha but it really features all of the team. If I haven't scared you away, please read on. And thanks, as always, for your support.

**DEFIANCE**

The Enchantress takes Steve, mind, body, and soul.

The Avengers come to take him back.

It isn't easy. She has him in her clutches for nearly a month before they track her down to a remote location deep in the Himalayas. It is all part of some greater plot to lure Thor to her, to force him to trade places with his captain and become her mate and her way into ruling Asgard as its queen. It starts as that, at any rate. Somewhere during Steve's captivity it turns into something else, something depraved.

She _takes_ him, mind, body, and soul.

Thor brings down the Executioner. He is unhinged and unrestrained and violent, smashing through him as though his bulging muscles and insane eyes and blood-soaked battle axe are nothing. The rest of the Enchantress' forces fall to the Avengers' wrath, to Hawkeye's deadly aim, to Black Widow's ruthless knives and guns, to Iron Man's powerful repulsors and missiles, to the Hulk's rage. And they race through her lair, through caves made to look like something more, like something magical and _beautiful_, by the likes of gossamer drapes and silk and satin. But it's just like her, a gorgeous illusion covering violence and brutality and ugliness. They reach her bedroom, the place where she's imprisoned their captain, and find him on her bed. She's atop him, and her knife is slicing. At their entrance, she whirls, her eyes wild and wet with rage. She pulls Steve down to kneel at her feet. He's beaten and bleeding from wounds old and new, so many that there's very little left of him that's recognizable. He's weak and bent and barely breathing, barely conscious, his wrists in chains, nearly naked. She holds a knife to his throat, her hand tangled in his hair to keep him against her. She whispers something to him, something low they can't hear, and Steve only blinks slowly in response and struggles to _breathe_ and _hold still_. The blade nicks his skin and drifts higher to his chin. A tear slips down his cheek. She grins at that, but it's a tense smile, a smile that rings of her anger and frustration. Then she offers Thor a final choice: take Steve's place or she would take Steve's life.

They take hers.

It doesn't begin to make them feel better, let alone whole.

The Avengers don't go back to the SHIELD helicarrier. Other than a brief communication from Clint that their mission is a success, they are silent. The horrible fact of what happened crushes their relief that Steve's alive, that they got him back. No words are shared, not even to each other, as Natasha holds Steve's brutalized body wrapped in a blanket and Bruce tries to tend to his injuries and Tony paces the floor of the jet and Thor helps hold bandages to stem the flow of blood and makes the sky rage with lightning. Clint flies the jet straight through the storm that haunts their entire way home to Stark Tower, and when they land they rush their captain to the medical floor. Thor cradles him in his arms as Bruce gathers the supplies he needs to treat Steve's innumerable wounds. Broken bones. Ribs that are shattered and a rigid abdomen that's full of blood. Lacerations that run down deep to bone. Some are days old and the serum hasn't even begun to heal them. His back is a mess of new slices that overlap and criss-cross and reach around to embrace his torso and abdomen, long, angry welts that are hot and inflamed and oozing. His shoulder is dislocated and has been for quite some time because it's completely healed around the damaged joint. His right wrist is broken. Most the fingers of his left hand are, too. At one point his captors hobbled him; his ankles have been shattered with great force, and they have both healed poorly. There are marks all over him, on his neck and chest and down lower. Bites and gouges from finger nails. But the worse of it is writing that's seemingly carved across his breast. They haven't noticed it until now, until they dare to pull away the soaked bandages they've been using to try and stop the bleeding. The slices aren't just cuts and lacerations.

"What the hell is that?" Tony asks. He looks pale and sick and horrified.

Thor grimaces. Every line of his body is tense. He lays his hand over Steve's skin, his fingers trembling as they cover the hateful, vicious letters. "It is an Asgardian spell," he softly announces to his teammates. His voice is grave and tight with anger and sorrow. "It binds one to his true fate."

"Is it a word?" Clint's lips hardly moved around his question. "What does it mean?"

Thor closes his eyes. "Submission."

* * *

Steve sleeps. He sleeps for days after Bruce puts his body back together. It was a grueling process, breaking and resetting the bones and stitching the gashes and doing the best they could to fix the internal damage. The team stays with him, changing his bandages, watching his weak breathing and checking labored his pulse to make sure his heart keeps beating. They wash him as soon as they can because they can't stand the sight of what she (she quickly becomes a "she" and a "her" because thinking of her as anything else makes it too real) has done to him. They sponge away the blood, and they notice immediately that the wound on Steve's chest isn't healing like everything else. Even the deepest of lacerations have begun to close after a few days, but the scar hasn't changed at all. No matter how they wipe at that word splayed across Steve's chest with wet washcloths, it doesn't come off. And no matter how hard they apply pressure to prevent the unending seeping of blood, it never stops. "It cannot be removed," Thor explains as Natasha holds Steve's hand (the one not completely splinted and wrapped) tightly in between her own and Clint tiredly leans back in his chair after another worthless attempt at getting the blood-encrusted letters off of Steve's body. Clint sets the wet rag back into a basin beside Steve's bed. "It cannot be healed. If there was a way, I would do it."

"There has to be a way. It's a lie. It has to come off." Thor sadly averts his eyes, and that fuels Clint's frustration. "Steve wouldn't submit to her," Clint says. His eyes are dark and filled with anger. "He wouldn't. He's too strong for that."

"She controlled men. Enslaved them to her will," Thor says.

They know that. It's pretty goddamn obvious what she did to him. But Clint denies it. Tony has been denying it, too. They don't seem capable of accepting the truth, no matter how stark it is right before their eyes. "Bullshit. He would _never_ submit to her or to anyone else," Clint declares again. There isn't a speck of doubt in his voice, but his quivering body and shifting eyes betray that he's not certain. This is shaking him. It's shaking them all to the core of their team, of who they are and their faith in each other. It's shaking them because Steve is Captain America. He's their leader, the one who holds them together and makes them _work _even when they can't stand each other, even when egos and personalities and demons and emotions get in the way of teamwork and friendship and make things damn difficult. He's invincible, unwavering. Indomitable.

"This is my fault," Thor whispers.

"You're damn right!" Clint snaps. He's up and out of his chair and pulling the sheets and blankets back up over Steve's chest as if hiding the word from sight can make it go away. It can't and he knows it. His eyes flash in fury. "He didn't break," he says lowly, _firmly_, as though he's challenging Thor to argue with him. Thor doesn't. He looks devastated in a way that seems impossible. Clint leaves and slams the door behind him.

Natasha closes her eyes. There's no way to know. The Enchantress had Steve at her mercy for a month. Thirty days. Thirty days filled with torture. Thirty days filled with… There's no way to know how deep the damage goes.

* * *

They find out a few days later. It's a week after the Avengers rescued their captain, a week spent fearing for his life, and Steve finally opens his eyes. They don't focus at first, blindly roving the ceiling of his room in the Tower, blinking lethargically and dazedly. Tears that have been trapped beneath the lids roll down his temples, streaking into his hair. Natasha's there with him. She hasn't left his side, no matter how hard the others have pleaded with her to rest. She hasn't. She can't. _She won't._

Steve looks at her, and she summons the best smile she can manage. "You're home, Steve," she softly says. Home. A promise of safety and security and recovery. "We got you back."

He says nothing. His eyes slip closed again. Natasha watches. She's never felt so desperate for something before. A sign. A look. A whispered word, even if it means nothing in the long-run. That easy smile he always has for her. Right now it'll mean everything. She needs some validation that he's alright, that he's healing, that he's still who was before he was kidnapped. She needs some evidence that he can get better.

But there isn't any. Steve weakly pulls his hand away.

The Avengers were called in when SHIELD lost contact with Captain America and Black Widow. The two agents were dispatched to put down some sort of crime syndicate in South Korea that had been terrorizing local citizens. It still isn't clear whether or not they walked into a trap. When the team arrived, they only found Natasha, battered and bleeding in the woods outside of the warehouse where the terrorists had been. Horrified, Clint immediately ran to her, trying to gather her shaking form into his arms, but she screamed and pulled away and threw her fist at him like she didn't recognize him. It took both him and Tony to subdue her. She lay in Clint's embrace, wide-eyed and pale and unseeing even as he looked right in her eyes and tried to reach through to her. She was shaking. She was terrified. Something was very wrong, but she wouldn't answer no matter how many times they asked.

They took her to the helicarrier, where the doctors had looked her over carefully. Physically there wasn't much damage, a few bumps and bruises and scrapes. But she was so distraught they sedated her. Clint hovered outside her room, pacing with uncharacteristic nervous energy, tense with fear and worry. Bruce waited with him. He didn't bother to fill the ominous silence with useless words of comfort. It was obvious something terrible had happened, something to knock Black Widow, the one of them with the most control over her emotions, into a panicked stupor. Something that had taken their captain. Tony and Thor stayed behind in South Korea, frantically searching the surrounding area for Steve. They found his shield in the warehouse but no other signs of him. It was like he vanished. Maybe that would have been better.

Natasha came to in a gray room. She gasped in fear and pain, recoiling in the bed forcefully enough to jerk it back into the wall behind it. "Easy, Nat," Clint immediately soothed. He had her hand in his, and carefully he laid his other palm across her bruised forehead. "Easy. You're safe."

She didn't feel that way. She never had much, at least not before becoming an Avenger. But now she wondered if she ever would again. Her mind was overwhelmed with horrible images. There was no disorientation, no doubt or hope that it was all some perverted nightmare. She was too smart, and it was too real. She closed her eyes and shivered.

"Nat," Clint prodded again. He was watching her with eyes wide with worry. His hands were callused and warm as they grasped the side of her face and pulled her gaze back to him. "Look at me. You need to tell me what happened. Where's Steve?"

_Steve._

Voices cut into her mind. _"Don't touch her! Let her go!"_

_"What are you willing to give to protect her?"_

_"Everything. I'll do anything. I'll go with you. I'll take her place."_

_"Submission, Captain? You would give yourself to me?"_

_"Yes."_

_"As much as I want you, I would rather take you."_

_"You never will. Let her go or I'll–"_

"Nat, can you hear me? Nat?" She heard him. "We need to find Steve." Clint's voice was rough and rushed with worry. He was trying not to frighten her – he always protected her – but it was hard because he was frightened himself. She knew him too well not to see that. "What happened?"

"They ambushed us," she whispered. A beautiful woman with long blond hair and sparkling green eyes. Radiant and stunning and very, very dangerous. There was something dark and twisted about her, something powerful and desperate and other-worldly, and she watched dispassionately as the men she'd taken under her control overwhelmed the two Avengers. A hulking monster built of violence and madness thundered into the warehouse and went after Steve as though driven. He wielded a massive axe, and he swung it with abandon. As strong and fast as Steve was, he was no match for this man. The fight was quick and had ended with Natasha and Steve separated and both on their on their knees before their captors. "We didn't stand a chance."

"Who?"

Natasha's lips barely formed about the words. She was afraid to say them. "The Enchantress."

_She sashayed across the room, floating more than walking, and the silk of her red dress flowed around her like the blood rolling down her pale skin. "The captain," she slurred as she came to stand in front of Steve. The Executioner hauled him to his feet, towering over even Captain America. He held his arms behind him. Steve glared at her despite the desperate situation and the danger they were in. "The man to whom even the Prince of Asgard defers. He follows your orders with complete obedience. Without question, he surrenders his will to you. Does that mean if I control you, I control him?"_

_"I don't control him," Steve responded, undaunted even as she neared him. "He's my friend."_

_"Sad that Odin's son submits to a lowly mortal." She came closer and closer. Her fingers boldly sweep their way up Steve's chest, over the silver star blazing on his heart, to reach the clasp of his helmet. She unsnaps it and removes it from his head and tosses it aside. Steve continues to glare at her. "Though you are not just any mortal, are you."_

_Steve's eyes were hard, but the tiniest glimmer of fear showed in them for the briefest second. "What do you want?"_

_She didn't hesitate. "Power. I want to rule Asgard as its queen."_

_"Can't help you there," Steve coolly responded, but that fear came back as she leaned her body against his. She stared at him, hungrily. Seductively. She reached up a long, white finger that was tapered into a red point and wiped the blood seeping from Steve's split lower lip. "Back off," he warned._

_"You are strong, Captain, but not strong enough to command me." Her hand grabbed his chin hard and pulled his face to hers. "And you are not strong enough to defy me."_

_Steve's eyes flashed in anger. "I said back off," he snarled. "Don't touch me."_

_"No man can resist what I offer," she whispered, her breath ghosting over his lips. And she kissed him hard. He grunted and stiffened, but with the Executioner holding him so tightly, there was nothing he could do. There was a reaction she anticipated, and she was looking for it, waiting for it, because she held him tighter and deepened the kiss, keeping his face still._

_What she wanted never came. And when she let him go, his glare was unwavering. Hers was surprised. It quickly became terrifying. She was furious. She backhanded him, and he slumped from the force of the blow. "Who are you?" she hissed. "You must love me. No man can deny me."_

_Steve stood to his full height. "Get away from me." She raised her hand to slap him again, but Steve wrenched his forward and caught her wrist. He was squeezing hard enough to crack bones. "You can't control Thor, and you can't control me. Whatever you want from us, you're not going to get."_

_"Are you so certain?" She cocked an elegant eyebrow and moved away from Steve. Her icy gaze fell to Natasha, who'd been watching the exchange silently and fearfully. She was surrounded by the Enchantress' men, and at their mistress' nod, they grabbed her and pushed her to the floor. A fist struck her jaw. Another landed in her midriff. She fought back, but there were too many and they were driven, mad with lust and power…_

_"Leave her alone!" Steve broke free, a blur of blue and gold, and he launched into the crowd of men. "Get off of her! Get off!" Fists flew. He fought for her, wildly, powerfully, and the Enchantress watched, a satisfied smile twisting her face. When Steve pulled the last man away from Natasha, he gathered her in his arms and pushed her behind him. She clung to him. His hand was tight in hers as he planted himself between her and men trying to hurt her._

_"Steve…"_

_"Are you hurt? Nat?"_

"Nat?"

Natasha closed her eyes. "Steve stopped them from…" She couldn't bear to think it, let alone say it. She'd lived a difficult, dark life before coming to SHIELD, and she'd seen and done things that were the stuff of nightmares. But this went far beyond any of that.

Clint didn't need her to explain. His face fractured in alarm, the color draining from his unshaven cheeks. Then his jaw tightened. He was grinding his teeth. "They didn't–"

"No." Her voice was nothing more than a whisper. "Not me."

_The Executioner raged, slamming Steve down into the warehouse floor. His head struck the concrete, bouncing violently against it, and he stopped struggling. There was blood matted in his hair. His eyes were half-lidded as the hulking threat held him down, a huge boot across his throat. It would take nothing to crush him._

_"Is he yours?"_

_That soft, lilting voice drew Natasha's attention. It would be melodic, almost, were it not for the cruel glint shining in those burning green eyes. The woman before her took her chin and lifted her head so that their gazes met. The hunger, the power, staring down at her made her heart stop and her breath lock in her chest. "Is he?"_

_She couldn't lie. "No."_

_"Do you wish him to be?"_

_Things came from her lips. Her heart. Things she'd never admitted to anyone, not even to herself. This vile witch stuck her vicious fingers down into her soul and ripped them free. "Yes."_

_Her lush red lips twisted in a cruel, cold smile. "Good. You can watch." That didn't register. _None _of this registered. Not Steve groaning against the cement floor, barely conscious and dazed and hurting from the blows to his head. Not the Executioner looming over him, restraining him, his axe glinting wickedly in the harsh fluorescent lights of the warehouse. Not the knife the Enchantress drew from the leather belt that hung low on her hips. She traced the blade down Natasha's cheek carefully. "And then you can go back to my wayward prince and tell him what I've done. Tell him that his friend is mine, but I might be willing to make an exchange should he beg it of me. A mate for a mate. A captain for a king."_

Natasha didn't want to remember any more. She choked on a sob. Furious with herself, she wiped away her tears. "She took Steve," she said. Her voice trembled, her throat dry and aching and her mind lost in trauma. "She took him."

Clint understood what she couldn't make herself say. That dark, hateful glow in his eyes hardened and tightened and sharpened until Natasha was afraid of what he might do. "What does she want?"

"She said she wants Thor," she whispered. That wasn't right. She knew hunger. She knew power. She knew what it was like to use it, to wield it, to bring a man to his knees and then make him hers. "But I don't think…" Tears burned in her eyes. "Steve stood against her, and she was furious. I think…"

"Nat…"

"She wants to break him."

* * *

"The serum keeps him strong against mind control. It's a defense against whatever she tried to do to him," Bruce says as the Avengers gather in the common room for breakfast. It's early, too early, and they are bleary-eyed and exhausted. Tony has poured himself an overflowing bowl of Golden Grahams, but he hasn't touched it. There's fresh coffee brewing, but no one has a cup. Bruce stares at his hands. He's been looking for explanations, for scientific thought and logic and data to help him understand. To help him cope. "That's why he didn't bend to her will."

"Her will," Tony mutters disdainfully.

"Her magic was powerful," Thor explains. "With a single kiss she could convince a man of anything. Love. The promise of wealth and power. Pleasure. She could craft the most alluring illusions, feeding off of a man's insecurities and placating his weaknesses. I have known comrades who fell to her spells. Their minds were no longer their own, even long after she was gone."

"If she wanted you, why didn't she come for you?" Tony irately asks. He's leaning against the kitchen counter. He suddenly looks at the cereal he made for himself like it's poison and shoves his bowl away angrily. Milk sloshes over the side and spills and covers the granite counter in white. "Why do this?"

Thor looks defeated again. It's an expression he's been wearing constantly of late. "She was more concerned with dominating Steve than she was with taking me. Once he stood strong before her, it became an obsession. She was cruel, and he was a challenge to her." Tony winces again, furious and trying to keep it under control. "She wielded love like a weapon. Amora knew no compassion. She could suffer no opposition."

"Don't say her fucking name," Clint hisses. He's furious, too, but he's not making half the effort Tony is. "She's dead. And her reasons don't matter. She was a fucking evil bitch who deserved far more pain than we had the chance to give her."

"Clint–" But before Bruce can finish, Clint is gone again, storming from the kitchen and out into the corridor adjacent to it. Bruce watches him go, and he sinks wearily back to his stool. He pulls his glasses from his face and wipes his hands down it, scrubbing at his eyes for a moment. "This is tearing us apart."

Tony grunts. "What the hell did you expect? We knew what the fuck she was doing to him. It was like the goddamn elephant in the room. Like if we pretended it wasn't there it would somehow go away. And now we got him out of there, and it's not going away."

Bruce sighs. He changes the subject slightly, but it always comes back to the same thing. The same nightmare they've been living for the last month. The same hell. It's all they talk about, all they think about. All they dream about. "We need to get Natasha help," he says after a beat. "She's running herself ragged. I know she's tough, tougher than any of us maybe, but what she saw… You don't just get over that."

"How can we possibly help her?" Tony demands. "How can anyone possibly help her with that?"

Bruce doesn't know. He opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it and tosses his glasses to the table in frustration. The silence that comes is rife with tension, with the rawness of their pain and frustration. Eventually Thor stands. He looks ridiculous in jeans and a red t-shirt. He looks impotent. "I shall sit with Steve for a while and see if I can convince her to sleep."

He walks away. Tony calls after him, "Good luck with that."

When Thor is gone, Bruce turns to look at his friend. "Cut him some slack, huh? This isn't his fault."

"Like hell it's not," Tony grumbles.

"It's not." Bruce is firm. "He's hurting, too, and getting angry with each other isn't going to solve anything."

"It's too late to _solve_ anything," Tony responds. The milk is pooling on the counter. He doesn't make any effort to clean it up. "The damage is already done. It's too goddamn late! Maybe if we'd found him sooner…"

"There wasn't a way. We had no leads, and the world's a big place. She had all the control, and she wanted time to–"

"To what? Beat him? Torture him? Rape him until he finally convinced himself he loved her?" Bruce winces. "That's most screwed up thing I've ever heard. He pissed her off because he didn't melt at the first kiss, and she goes at him and goes at him and rips him apart until there's fucking nothing left!"

"Blaming ourselves isn't going to make anything easier. It's–"

"Don't tell me it's nobody's fault!"

Bruce sighs. He's helpless and he's known it for days. "What do you want me to say, Tony? That he'll heal? That he'll get better? Be who he was?" He shakes his head again. "I can't make those kinds of promises. You know I can't."

"Christ." Days of desperation, of terror, of pain and worry are finally wearing them down. Tony turns his eyes up to the ceiling, but the wet glimmer in them is too obvious to ignore. He sniffs, shaking as he tries to hold himself together. His hands slap uselessly against his thighs. "We're his team. His friends." _Family._ "And we can't get him back. We couldn't _save_ him from this. That… that goddamn witch _marked him_. We can't get him back from that."

The pain becomes too much. Bruce stands and comes around the counter and grabs Tony by the shoulders. He turns the inventor to face him, even though Tony struggles and keeps his watery, shamed eyes away. "Yes, we can. We'll get him back," Bruce says. This he does promise, even if he's not sure. Even if there aren't answers to be had. "Together."

* * *

So they try to get him back, but it still isn't easy. They start to worry that those things they've refused to think about (the damage and a soul more broken than a body and the scar on Steve's chest) can't be healed. Thor is right; if there's a way to do it, they'd do it, but there doesn't seem to be a way. There doesn't seem to be anything aside from fear and frustration and helplessness. They want more than they're going to get. First it was enough to find Steve. Then it was enough to rescue him. After that it was enough to make sure he survived his injuries, that he slept without pain and was as comfortable as he could be. But none of that is enough now. It isn't enough.

The first few days Steve's awake (and awake is a generous term) are spent in a tentative, uncertain haze. Nobody knows what to expect as Steve slowly reclaims awareness. What he remembers. What he doesn't. He doesn't come back to the world all at once or even smoothly. It's a murmur here and there. A wince and a whimper and eyes that open but don't seem to see. A glint of recognition, but it never grows beyond that. A faint word or two, but they can't understand what he's saying. He's hovering in some place between wakefulness and sleep, somewhere where he's not really aware and so thankfully not in as much pain as he could be. But he's not really aware, so he's not with them, either. There are things below the surface, horrible things. Dark things. The Avengers see it in his bleary eyes, in the quiver of his breath, in the way his body shakes atop the sheets of the bed. He's never alone. Clint paces the room like a caged animal, but when Steve comes around even the slightest bit, he's there at the side of the bed, coaxing his fallen friend back with patience and tenderness that seems utterly incomprehensible given the rage boiling in his blood at every other time. Bruce works; he's never without a tablet or a pad or a book. He's calm and constant and practical, his hands changing bandages or switching IV bags or gently measuring vitals. Thor watches with a sad, miserable expression on his face that never seems to leave now except when Steve flirts with the edges of consciousness, and then he is steadfast and comforting and encouraging, holding tight to Steve's hand and pulling him back with every ounce of hope he has. Tony talks. He talks incessantly, about stupid, mundane things, about his inventions and his ideas and politics and food and music and pop culture. He talks though Steve's too hurt and weak to answer or understand or even listen. It's not just for Steve's comfort, the hum of his voice in steady, mindless conversation. And Natasha is a ghost, a phantom of the strong, capable fighter she used to be. She's there in the shadows, in the chair beside the bed, in the bed itself when Steve's frame wracks with pain. She doesn't know what he's dreaming, but she wants there to be some comfort at least. Some small bit.

They try to get him back, but for a while, all they can do is wait.

It hurts, but they wait.

* * *

They don't have to wait long. And the nightmare they've feared, _dreaded_, comes at them with full force and without mercy.

* * *

Steve's body is not his own. It doesn't feel right to move or sleep or speak or even breathe without her permission, so he tries not to. Punishment comes swiftly and without mercy, and the pain is still there. He sees his friends now, blurry, indistinct shadows that loom over his bed and whisper solace and touch him carefully with hands that are tentative and light and constantly afraid of causing him pain. He's been in pain so long that his baseline of suffering has shifted so high that they can't possibly understand that there's nothing they can do to hurt him. He's not brave enough to tell them.

"Here," Tony says as he helps Steve sit up slightly, propping the pillows up behind him. His hands are warm and callused from so many hours spent in the thick of inventing. There's grease around his nails that never seems to go away. Steve notices this as those fingers guide a glass of water to his lips. His own hands are too damaged to manage much of anything. This is just as well. His body is not his own, and she told him not to move. She didn't tell him he could drink.

But the minute the water touches his tongue, it tastes cold and so good. She'll hurt him for drinking without getting her permission, but Tony doesn't stop pouring and he doesn't stop swallowing. Some of it dribbles from the side of his mouth when Tony pours a little faster than his damaged throat can handle. "Shit. Sorry." He reaches for a paper towel and brushes it over Steve's lips, and that's all it takes to take him back there and he wants to scream but he can't and his arm comes to push Tony away because he's _not_ back there so he can fight if he wants and _he wants–_

"Steve?"

Tony watches him with eyes that are wide and frightened and disturbed. Steve looks down, so certain he felt Tony's head snap to the side under the pulverizing force of his hand, but his hand is still limp and unmoving and wrapped in bandages where it rests uselessly across his belly. He never moved. He imagined.

The silence is awkward and suffocating. Tony wipes the rest of the water away from Steve's chin, but he's unsettled. "You want more?"

He doesn't answer. She never told him it was okay to speak.

* * *

"Steven Grant Rogers. 37337566." He said this over and over again. Every time she demanded his silence, his acquiescence, his obedience. It was what he'd been taught to say if he was ever captured and subjected to torture. He'd been taught by the army. Taught by SSR. Taught by SHIELD. This was what he was supposed to do. And he did it, though not because she wanted information from him. She wanted his silence. "Steven Grant Rogers. SSR. SHIELD. 37337566." Every time he said it, she hit him. She hit harder and faster until the room was spinning and he knew he was slipping into shock from blood loss. Until his own voice sounded rough and alien and weak to his ears. Until he could barely understand what he was saying because his words were slurring together so badly. The chant went on in his head, so he clung to it. Even at night, when she tossed and turned in her bed and she made him sleep chained to the floor, and shivering with the pain and the cold, he whispered it. Over and over and over again. He knew she could hear him. "Steven Grant Rogers. 37337566." She screamed in frustration. That was some small, twisted victory, and he clung to that, too. He didn't care that she was angry. She wanted his silence. He refused to give it to her. "Steven Grant Rogers. 37337566."

She grabbed him about the neck and squeezed. "You think you will be the man you were? You can never be that man again! You can never be Captain America again!"

"Steven Grant Rogers. Captain, United States Army. 37337566."

"You'll pay for every word you say," she hissed against his ear.

That didn't stop him from fighting her. Nothing would. "Steven Grant Rogers. Captain America. 37337566."

* * *

The nightmares are the worst. Worse than the flashbacks. Worse than even Steve's silence. He hasn't talked since he's truly regained consciousness, not really anyway, and the tight leash of fear they see in his eyes is devastating. "It's conditioning," Natasha explains once when the team is gathered outside Steve's room as he finally drifts through an uneasy, drug-induced slumber. Her eyes are dark with fatigue and resignation. "Behavior modification. She trained him not to speak."

"Will it wear off?" Tony asks.

The scar across Steve's chest is as angry and raw as it was the day they rescued him. "I don't know."

As awful as that is, the hell that comes upon them every night is far more terrible. Steve speaks when he dreams. He speaks a lot. He screams in pain, begs for mercy, shouts in anger and rails in frustration. The lessons he was taught disappear when his brain slips into sleep and finds some escape, and he comes apart, night after night, straining and fighting and wailing until he's hoarse. Thor spends these times with him because he's too strong, even as covered in bandages and plaster as he is, for anyone else to be safe in the face of his unhinged and unrestrained strength. Thor stays awake the whole night, battling through the nightmares at Steve's side. He is steadfast and unwavering, even as exhaustion begins to pry at his resolve. This is his penance, the thing he can do now for embroiling his friend in yet another conflict from his realm. Amora wanted him, after all, but she took Steve. He realizes things he does not tell the others. That she was driven mad with desire and lust, for power and for love. Perhaps she wished to rule Asgard as its queen. Perhaps she wished to dominate Thor, force him to serve her and deliver unto her his kingdom. But Steve sealed his fate the second he didn't succumb to her kiss. She drove men to worship her beauty, her body, her power. It should have taken that single kiss to pull Steve under her control. Her obsession with power and domination permitted her no other recourse but to destroy him until he submitted to her.

Nobody can bear to look at the word cut into their captain's chest.

It's late, and the night is so silent that Thor can hear every pant from Steve's shaking body. It takes more and more effort and strength to calm him and to stay calm himself. He slew Amora, but the driving desire for vengeance still tickles him, drifting about the darker planes of his heart and softly seeking its due. There's no way to slack its thirst, no way to fill that void inside him that yearns for more. There's no one else to kill. He will have to learn to live with this. He will have to.

He will have to learn to overcome his guilt.

"Steven, you must wake, my friend," he implores in the softest, gentlest voice he can manage. Steve's right arm lashes out, casted still from his elbow to his wrist, and nearly strikes Thor in the head. The God of Thunder grits his teeth and kneels beside the bed, gently holding Steve down and praying to the Allfather his friend does not mistake his caring hands for the hands of those who hurt him. "Steve, please."

He wakes. Thor doesn't expect him to, so when he does, it's stunning and unnerving. He moves closer, sitting on the side of Steve's bed and watching blue eyes blink rapidly and sift through the shadows to find the truth. "You are safe," Thor swears, trying to seem certain as he carefully settles the blankets and sheets again about his captain's shivering body. "She cannot hurt you anymore."

Steve looks at him. It's not the way it was. There's no strength or certainty. The serene confidence of Captain America is gone from his eyes. That's bothersome enough, but it's more than that. It's Steve himself, the kindness and compassion and easy loyalty. That's gone, as well. "She's dead?" he asks.

He's been drifting from nightmare to memory to reality and everything between them for days. At the moment he seems grounded. Thor swallows through a dry throat. "Yes. I killed her."

"This is real?"

The pain is damning. "Believe me," Thor whispers. "This is real."

Steve says nothing to that, but Thor can tell he doesn't believe him.

* * *

Eventually he convinces himself this place is safe, that these people around him (_your team and your friends) _are no threat to him. He makes himself accept that. He's still trapped in a bedroom, in a bed, but he makes himself think that that's okay. He doesn't have a choice.

* * *

"Do you think he recognizes us?"

Clint's soft question takes them all aback. It's quite loud in the heavy quiet. Bruce looks up from his work, and Tony turns way from the television. Clint's not looking at them, staring darkly at the coffee table as if the heavy, expensive glass and chrome is the most interesting thing he's ever seen. The same angry scowl he's been donning for the past six weeks is still there, but it's weaker now. Weaker with dawning realization. "Do you think he does?"

"Of course he does," Tony says. He's trying to sound certain, but it's not convincing at all. It's _too_ confident, _too_ forced. "Why? You don't think so?"

Clint shakes his head. He doesn't respond right away, and when he does, it's not comforting. "I don't know. Maybe he does."

"She got into his head," Tony says dismissively. "She got into every other part of him. Makes sense she'd fuck with his mind, too."

Maybe it does. Clint isn't satisfied. "Sometimes he looks at me and I can't tell something's not right, like he's not seeing me. Like he's not sure if I'm really there." He's weary. He wipes at his eyes and sniffs and reaches for his bottle of beer. "I don't know. This whole thing is so fucked up. I don't know."

"I do."

Thor's soft answer takes them aback again. He stands at the huge window watching the rain wash down the glass. The clouds are weighty and thick against the top of Stark Tower. "It is not that he does not recognize us." The low rumble of his voice sounds like thunder. He turns to look at his teammates, and there is so much pain in his eyes that they hardly recognize _him_. "He doesn't think that we came to save him."

* * *

They've all come now and then. Steve won't remember (at least they think he won't) because he's mostly asleep and when he's awake he's mostly delirious. That makes it easier to whisper their apologies. They tried. Lord knows they did. The month Steve spent in captivity they spent in desperation, in panic, without rest or reprieve. Tony and Bruce worked closely with SHIELD, designing better scanners and tracking equipment, digging through mountains of data from all over the world. Clint and Natasha went into the dark corners of the globe, to informants and moles and snitches, to dark men with evil purposes that they could threaten and twist and intimidate for information. Thor's father called him home to Asgard once the king learned of the plot to overthrow his throne. He demanded Thor's assistance in protecting the realm from the Enchantress and her servants. Thor didn't return, and he spent days pacing the Tower, the Triskelion, the helicarrier, leaping at every opportunity to be of service. Every lead was followed. Every chance was pursued. Even the smallest clue or hint was explored. They tried so hard to find their captain.

And they failed. They were too late.

Apologies aren't enough. They don't mean a damn thing.

* * *

_They'll come for me._ Steve imagined them bursting through the door of her bedroom, guns firing and arrows whizzing and energy discharging and hammers flying. He imagined this late at night when she slept beside him. He imagined this during the day when she beat him for some small token of resistance. _They'll come for me._ Things were rapidly being reduced to their simplest forms. Scant thoughts because he couldn't spare the energy or willpower to manage anything more. Simple reactions because sometimes that was all he had left. The barest truths. Cause and effect. If he spoke out of turn, she would hit him. If he resisted her, she would hit him. If he didn't tell her he loved her… He would never tell her. He didn't love her. This was the only facet of his life that he could control: whether or not he would succumb to her. Some moments everything was so clear. He knew who he was. _Steven Grant Rogers. 37337566. __Captain America. _He knew what he had to do. _Keep fighting. Stay strong. You can do it, Cap._ That sounded like Tony's voice. _We're with you, Cap. We're not going to leave you. _Clint and Bruce. _Get back up. Keep going. We're coming for you. _Some moments he believed. _She will not take you, Steve. _Thor. _Hang on, Steve. I'll find you._ Natasha, sure and stoic. He remembered that he had to be strong for the sake of his friends and family, for himself, because they were coming to rescue him. They were coming and he couldn't disappoint them.

But there were other moments, moments where the pain stole every thought, emotion, and sensation, moments where his mind was sundered by torture and her madness, moments where she invaded every part of him, and he couldn't be sure of anything. Why suffer like this? Why?

Why not love her?

_Because they're coming for me._

"It's going to take time, Steve," Bruce says. He sits beside Steve, his capable fingers working on removing the cast from Steve's right wrist. The most recent x-rays show that the bones are healed, so Bruce decides Steve might be more comfortable without the bulky plaster on arm. He's already cut that away and is pulling the gauze and padding off. The skin beneath is discolored. "It's going to take a lot of time. And we're going to help you every step of the way. Every step."

Steve says nothing. Bruce takes his hand in his own, examining it, tenderly feeling the bones and tendons and muscles. "You know that, right?" he asks. Steve says nothing. Bruce looks up, folding his hand into his own, patting gently. Comfortingly. Steve flinches. She trained him to flinch at even the touches that don't hurt. "Steve? You can talk to us. You can say anything you want. She's dead. She's not here to stop you. She's not here to hurt you. You can talk."

Nothing. Bruce is clearly disappointed, his eyes shining in remorse and a little bit of hurt. An uncomfortable moment of silence slips away. "Can you make a fist?" Steve's fingers flex and twist a little in Bruce's, but he doesn't. Bruce isn't sure if it's because he can't or he won't. "Squeeze my fingers." He doesn't do that that, either. "Can you try? I need to make sure you've got the strength back in your hand."

He has no strength. Nobody seems to understand that.

* * *

Thor spends every night at Steve's side. It feels like an eternity. The hours go on and on, an endless march of painful minutes. He doesn't need sleep like the others, and this is his fault, so he continues onward thoughtlessly and without repose in his punishment. One night (they have so bled together that he's not quite sure how many it's been since they returned with Steve to New York) Steve's nightmares are particularly bad. Thor cannot calm him, no matter what he says or does, but he has no wish to wake the others. What can they do, at any rate? They need rest, some semblance of peace, and this is his fault. _This is my fault._

Steve writhes. Thor knows what he's dreaming. He can't fathom it. He doesn't want to. He looks down at the body Amora ruined and the mind Amora shattered and the heart Amora took. _This should have been me._ The anger comes back and he welcomes it, because the anger feeds his strength. The anger empowers him to somehow make this right. He lied to Clint earlier. There is a way, and he will find it.

"Steven, hear my voice," he implores, wiping the sweat away from his friend's forehead. "Hear me and come back. She has no power over you now."

Steve doesn't wake. His eyes are squeezed shut and he groans through a jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. Thor is weary of suffering; it's a selfish thing, but patience has never been a virtue of his. He grabs Steve's forearms and pulls them away from his chest and pushes him onto his back. "Steve, hear me. _Please._ She is dead. I killed her. I killed her, and we brought you home. We brought you _home_. Do you understand me?" Thor battles the burning in his eyes. "Do not give yourself back to her!"

Steve's eyes snap open when Thor's weight carefully presses over his body in a forceful embrace. Fear flashes across his sweaty face. But the fear fades into realization. Into _recognition_. "You came?" he whispers.

Thor smiles at him comfortingly, working to keep the hurt he felt at Steve's doubt and surprise from his tone. "Of course," he assures.

"She said you wouldn't."

"She lied." Thor shakes his head and grabs the fingers of Steve's unbroken hand and holds them in his own hands over his friend's chest. "Everything she told you was a lie. _Everything_. We are your team. We are your friends. Your family. I love you like my brother. We all do. You _know_ this."

For this moment, Steve looks as though he is struggling to understand. It's the first time Thor has seen _him_ in his eyes, beneath the terror and deadened apathy. "She said you wouldn't take my place."

Thor pulls him up slightly into a hug, the best they can manage. "I would have," he swore in a hoarse murmur. "I would have done anything to take your place."

Steve says nothing to that, but now Thor can tell he's starting to believe him.

* * *

The delirium finally releases him. It's a much welcomed thing, and everyone breathes a huge, grateful sigh of relief when Steve finally escapes. The mood in the Tower instantly improves, and the team sleeps unbothered and without fear for the first time since Steve was kidnapped. They still stay with him in shifts, and Steve is still quiet. He barely speaks, but his eyes are clearer, and the pain isn't as bad as it was. No matter how badly she hurt him, the serum brings him out of it. They entertain the thought he can get better.

That brand across his chest is still there, though. It is as bloody and horrific as it was the day they brought him home. It doesn't heal even as the serum kicks into high gear and works valiantly at restoring all of his other injuries. His broken bones are mending. His back is scabbed over. The cuts and bruises all over his body are fading rapidly. But that hideous mark… It never changes. Thor insists it was put there by magic, but Tony and Bruce believe there's a scientific explanation for it. They take blood samples and skin samples and images, but nothing they do proffers any answers. They carefully apply all sorts of salves and creams and medicines (even the ones they know are long-shots) to try and induce some sort of healing, but nothing does. Clint insists they do all of this while Steve sleeps; they've been successful at keeping the scar from his knowledge despite the fact it's literally painted across his chest. He's so sore and stiff and achy and tired that they don't think he's noticed (if the scar even causes him pain; it's hard to tell). And they've continually kept it under bandages because they're afraid (and rightly so) that if Steve sees it, he'll be more than upset. He's made progress (slow progress, but progress nonetheless) and they don't want to risk it.

But keeping it hidden is a temporary solution, and they all know it. It's only a matter of time before he sees how she marked him.

* * *

Natasha hasn't tried yet. They all have, in some way or another. They've all tried to get that horrific scar off of Steve's chest. Tony and Bruce have tried with science and medicine. Thor has tried with prayers to Asgardian deities and magic of his own. Clint is old fashioned, so he's tried with water and soap and washcloths and tender care. None of that has worked, so there's nothing she can do. And she's terrified of it. She's terrified of seeing it, of what it means. The Enchantress was carving this curse into Steve's chest when the Avengers arrived to rescue him. Does that mean he fought her to very last, that he _never_ submitted? That's what Clint thinks and what Tony thinks. Thor thinks it's a mark of Steve's defeat. The meaning doesn't matter to Bruce; all that concerns him is getting rid of it before Steve realizes it's there. And she doesn't know what to think or if she even has the right to think anything at all. All she sees is what he endured to protect her.

"I should've fought harder," she whispers. There's no one there but Steve to hear it, and he's asleep. "I should've…" There was nothing she could've done. They were outnumbered, faced with defeating two Asgardians who were each significantly stronger than both of them combined. She's seen something she knows she'll never come to terms with, let alone forget. And she _knelt there_, silently weeping, watching because she couldn't tear her eyes away, not even struggling. As that witch took what Steve refused to give her.

So that mark was her fault. Her and hers alone.

"I'm so sorry, Steve." She's afraid to touch him now. She never has been before, and that frightens her almost as much as the word she knows is burning beneath the white bandages across his chest. All the times they've worked together, friendly laughs and easy camaraderie and blossoming trust and friendship. All the times she's flirted with him, brushed against him or kissed his cheek, and enjoyed his flustered, innocent blush. All the times she's been saved by those strong hands that now lay so limply against his broken body. All the times she's wished for more, a silent, soft, precious thing in the depths of her hardened heart that she's treasured but until now she hasn't had the strength to acknowledge… It's ruined. She's afraid to touch him now where she _never_ has been before. "I'm so sorry."

She finally works up the courage to lay her hand over the bandage on his chest. She can almost feel the scar through the loose shirt he has on and the coarse gauze beneath it. It's hot and pulsing and ugly, filled with malice and cruelty. She thinks she can feel everything the Enchantress did to him. Forceful kisses. Teeth scraping over skin. Hands hurting. She knows what that's like. It turned her into an assassin, into a murderer. And she has more in common with the witch than she can make herself admit. Seductress. Temptress. Since becoming an Avenger, since Captain America brought out the best in her, she's found nobility and compassion and valor. She's left that life behind, but it'll always be a part of her, an ugly stain that she'll never be able to wipe away. At least, not completely. Back in the day, if a man refused Black Widow, she would have killed him. Certainly it's a far cry from this level of violence and sadistic domination, but in the end, it doesn't feel any different.

Clint tells her she's thinking too much. He doesn't even know what she's thinking, but it's too fucking much. She knows he's right. But if the occasion ever comes for her to kiss Steve's cheek again or brush her body against his, will he know that she'll never hurt him?

She stares at his mouth, at his slightly parted lips that are dry and chapped. That hand she's barely found the courage to bring to his chest she brings to his face. The roughness of stubble prickles her fingertips as she lightly traces his jaw. She dreads his flinch, his cry, his fear. It doesn't come because he's sleeping, and that emboldens her when it shouldn't. She tenderly sweeps her thumb over his lower lip. All those times she could have kissed him, she _should have_ kissed him and told him the truth… The Enchantress took those, too.

She wants to touch him so badly that she does. And she wants to kiss him so badly that she does that, too. It's safe because he's asleep. He won't know. And then she settles herself beside him and pulls the blanket up and over his chest and tries not to think anymore.

* * *

He wakes up later and looks at Natasha like he doesn't recognize her. Like she'll attack him. He won't fight her. It's a conditioned response. That small amount of light and vigor that's slowly been coming back to his eyes fades so easily. He'll let her do anything to him. She doesn't have to demand. She doesn't even have to ask him. _It's a conditioned response._

She should let him go, but that's not the answer. The behavior modification has to be undone, the lessons forgotten and the training erased. He needs to realize he's safe, and that touch doesn't mean pain. So despite her horror and alarm, she smiles gently and shakes her head. "No," she whispers. She reaches for his hand and holds it. "No one is ever going to force you to do that again."

He doesn't answer. He doesn't understand, maybe. It will take time. The Enchantress tore him down in a month. It will take time to rebuild him. It will take time for him to find his strength and courage again. It will take time for him to realize he has choices. She gives him a simple one. "Do you want me to leave?"

Again, he doesn't answer. She wonders if he's forgotten how. He's forgotten what it feels like to want. Natasha is gentle and patient and doesn't prod or make the choice for him. She can't understand or even see what he's thinking. But he finally shakes his head. It's better than silence. Some cynical part of her wonders if it's not another conditioned response, that her wants are masquerading around as his inside his heart and inside his head. She can't know that right now, and her relief at not being sent away is too strong to question.

"Nat?"

She barely restrains her relieved sob. "What?"

He closes weary eyes. "Did they hurt you?"

It's the first sign of _him_, of their friend and leader and the man they all respected and admired. "No, Steve."

His relieved sob bursts out of him. She holds him tighter and lets him cry.

* * *

_Tell me you love me._ He remembers that. He remembers pain. He remembers bleeding all over her, all over the sheets of her bed, and he remembers her mouth hot and powerful and harsh on his. He remembers hearing the words over and over again, hissed into his lips, into his ear, searing the planes of his mind. _Tell me you love me, Steve. Tell me._

He doesn't remember what he said.

* * *

It's hard to sit still. Despite the many hours he'd spent kneeling at her feet, hunched with his arms bound behind his back, struggling to remain perfectly motionless even as his muscles throbbed and his bones ached, it still isn't easy. And it isn't easy to let people be behind him. It isn't easy to trust.

"These are looking good." Bruce's voice is warm and encouraging, and his hands are gentle, but Steve is still stiff beneath them. Bruce has noticed, of course, but he's not mentioning it. "Everything's healing up nicely."

"Hear that, Cap?" Clint says. He's sitting in front of Steve, handing Banner bandages and gauze as he needs it. "You'll be good as new soon. Out kicking ass and taking names."

Steve doesn't smile at that. He knows what Clint is trying to do. He's trying to get him to see beyond this. Beyond this room in Stark Tower that he knows was once his but has now become a sick room. Beyond his bed where he's been trapped. Beyond what happened. Clint's trying to remind him that there's life outside of this hell. He's trying to remind himself, too. "I… I don't know," Steve softly admits.

Bruce gathers the rest of the soiled bandages and comes around to the front of the room to dump them in the trash. He steps into the bathroom and there's the sound of water running as he washes his hands. Steve looks down at his own hands where they sit on his lap. They've removed the splints from his left hand earlier. His fingers look almost normal, but they're still a little bruised and swollen and weak. There's something crusted under his nails. Blood, he thinks. "What don't you know, Steve?" Clint asks.

He doesn't know anything. But he's pretty damn sure about this. "I don't think I can."

He doesn't say anything more, but they understand. Clint opens his mouth to immediately object, to assure Steve that he most definitely _can_ go back out and be Captain America and fight evil and lead them like nothing's happened, but Bruce stops him. "Why?"

"You saw what she did to me," Steve says. His tone is dead.

Bruce nods and sits on the bed in front of him. "Nobody thinks less of you," Clint assures him. "Not one of us thinks _any_ less of you."

Steve looks down at his hands. Things are clearer now as the fog of agony and delirium fades from his head. The enormity of what happened to him is harder and harder to deny. Of what he'd let happen. She turned him into… God, he feels dirty. He's ashamed of how he was used. He's ashamed to be her victim. Part of him bitterly wishes he could have died. She certainly brought him close enough to that, so many times she had, and the goddamn serum kept bringing him back. All the things that she used against him…

And there's something coming now that he hasn't felt in a while. Anger.

Captain America. The indispensable symbol of truth, justice, and American way. The pinnacle of human perfection. A hero who represents valor and honor. _Purity_. "I can't go back," he says lowly and with certainty.

Bruce and Clint share a worried glance. "Don't make decisions about that now," Bruce quietly advises. "There's no reason to."

"You need to give yourself time, Steve," Clint reminds him, like time can make any of this better. It can't.

Bruce looks hesitant for a second. "If you want to talk, we'll…" Steve's sharp shake of his head dismisses that thought before it's even finished. "There are people who can help you, if you don't feel comfortable talking to us."

That anger starts to simmer. It's hot and acidic and unpleasant in his throat. There's so much _there_, on the edge of his mind, and if he lets it he knows it will devour him. It's not far removed at all, everything she did to him. He doesn't want to talk. Not to them and certainly not to some stranger. He doesn't want to remember. What business is it of theirs? Even when he was suffering through it, he didn't feel this angry. Who was she to do this to him? _An evil, vindictive bitch._ Who the fuck–

"It's not your fault," Bruce says. "What happened wasn't your fault. Don't ever think it was." He tells Steve this to be strong and helpful and logical, but it's not any of those things. "You couldn't have stopped her."

"I know," Steve hisses. He pulls away from them. It isn't about laying blame, and it never has been. They don't know that because they weren't _there. _"Doesn't make it better. Give me my shirt."

"Steve–"

"Give me my goddamn shirt!" He hasn't yelled in what feels to be forever, so long in fact that the echo of his loud voice and harsh words surprise him more than it surprises them and his throat _hurts_. It feels _good_ in a dark way, not like the person he was but somehow very much like the person he thinks he's becoming. Clint and Bruce share another worried look that makes his ire burn even hotter, and when neither of them move to collect his discarded t-shirt from the side of the bed, he turns even though it sends pain arcing through his chest and belly like lightning and snatches it himself.

It hurts more to put it on, but he does. It _hurts_, but he doesn't let them help him. He doesn't want anyone to help him. He doesn't want anyone to see him. Not like this. _Not anymore._

* * *

Anger doesn't make it better. Some part of him knows that and tries to reason with all the other parts that she cut and hit and humiliated and brutalized and destroyed_. _The other parts don't listen.

* * *

"We're not equipped to deal with this," Bruce says as the team gathers around the table for a tense dinner of pizza and soda. Eating is back to a methodical, pleasure-less thing, something they do because they have to do. Everything is that way.

"What the hell does that mean?" Tony asks tightly. They've all noticed the tensions ramping up between them. They've all felt it. It's not something they can ignore. It's not something they can hide under a goddamn bandage like pretending it's not there will make it go away. "Cap'll pull through. He's healing."

"His body is," Bruce corrects. "His mind and his soul… That's harder to fix. And we're not equipped to deal with it. He needs an expert in traumatic experiences. Someone who can treat PTSD." The other things Banner doesn't mention are still there, no matter how much they like to hide them as well. Torture. Rape recovery. "He needs more help than we can give him."

"I don't think there's anyone in the whole wide world who can wave a magic wand and fix this," Tony answers hotly. He stuffs the rest of his pizza in his mouth and hardly chews before swallowing and then chugging the rest of his Mountain Dew. "So we might as well try."

"Tony, what she did to him–"

"We all fucking know what she did to him," Tony snaps back. "Stop acting like it's the end of the world. It's not a big deal."

Bruce looks aghast. "It _is _a big deal!"

"Are you suggesting we ignore Steve's anguish?" Thor demands. He eyes Stark with anger crackling in his gaze. "Are you suggesting we pretend it did not happen to him? Help him with denial?"

Tony shoves his plate away. "I'm suggesting that we stop trying to protect him from the truth. We can't, and we're doing him a disservice by trying. If he's angry, let him be angry. God knows he fucking _deserves_ to hurt _something_. If he wants to cry, let him cry. He fucking deserves that, too. He deserves whatever he wants. _Anything_ he wants. If he wants to deny it all, let him."

"Enabling self-destructive behaviors isn't going to help him," Bruce retorts. "He needs to be in therapy with someone trained to help him deal with his feelings. He's trying ignore it, but he's angry. He's really angry. That's not healthy."

"How the hell do we know what he feels? Does he even know? And who are we to judge what he needs?" Tony shakes his head. "The only thing I am goddamn _certain_ he needs is to see what she did to him. How are we gonna help him when we can't even be honest with him?"

Bruce's face fractures in trepidation and dismay. "I don't think adding to his trauma right now is a good idea–"

"Stark's right," Clint says. He's been staring morosely at his uneaten slice of pizza. His eyes gain a harder glint and he glances at Natasha, who's silent and morose. She's always silent. "He needs to see it."

* * *

So they show it to him. They all come, bearing pizza as some sort of peace-offering and apologies in their eyes and words they can't say poised on their lips. Of course Steve immediately knows this is wrong. Bruce mentions something about staying calm and not getting upset and breathing slowly. Clint tells him not to worry. Thor says they will fix this, and Tony looks at him and promises him he's strong enough to take it, that it doesn't mean anything. Natasha says nothing. She can't meet his gaze.

And then there's silence. Steve moves his eyes among them, frightened though he can't explain why. The quiet is vacuous, suffocating and cold, and he feels like he's there again, dangling on the precipice with the abyss wide and dark and deep below him. "She cut you, Steve," Bruce announces. "On your chest. Do you remember?"

He doesn't understand. No, that's a lie. The moment the soft, calm words leave Bruce's lips, he starts to remember. He doesn't know why. This is one wound among countless others. But he remembers. He remembers pain. He remembers blood all over the sheets of her bed. He remembers her cruel kiss, like every other cruel kiss she gave him. He remembers her weight pressing down on his broken body. He remembers hearing noise down the hallway, fighting and shouting and familiar voices. He remembers telling himself to hang on, that his friends had come – they had finally come – and they would save him. He remembers seeing the knife.

_Tell me you love me._ "No."

"She cut you," Bruce explains. "It's not healing."

"What – what do you mean? It's not healing?"

Bruce reaches out his hand and grasps Steve's shoulder. Steve winces and pulls away and Bruce does the same. "I'm not going to hurt you, Steve. I just want to show you."

"Show me what?" Tony and Thor and Clint come closer. There are hands on him. But these hands don't do anything other than offer comfort. "Please, don't…"

"Do you trust us?" Bruce asks.

He doesn't know. He doesn't want to answer. He doesn't want to hurt them. He doesn't want to get hurt. Trust is not something of which he's capable. Not anymore. But before he can say anything, Tony is there in front of him. "Don't freak out, Steve. It's not worth freaking out about. That bandage on your chest? It's covering it up."

"Covering up what?" He feels panicked.

"Do you want to see it?" Clint asks. "You don't have to."

_Say no. Take the out. You have choices here. You don't have to. _He's feeling so many things at once that it's downright impossible to sort it all out. They're moving too fast for him. "Can you lift up your shirt?" He doesn't say no. He's not allowed to say no. "Do you want me to do it?" He doesn't say no. His shirt is lifted. "I'm just going to take the bandage off, okay?" Is it okay? "We're not going to hurt you. Trust me. We'd never hurt you, Steve."

The room spins. He's not sure who's saying what or if the dark shadows around him are even talking. He feels something pull on the skin of his chest. "Strength, my friend," Thor implores. "Courage."

He has neither. Bruce pulls the bandage away.

There's something there. It runs deep, down through skin and muscle. Steve stares at it. It takes his reeling mind a moment to realize it's real. It takes another moment to recognize that it's a word of some sort. He can't read it. But he can feel. And he remembers more. Her weight on his broken body. Her eyes glowing in desperation and rage. Pain. Burning, agonizing pain. Someone's coming. She's cutting fast because there's no time and she needs to make sure he knows – that _they_ know – he's hers. _"Tell me you love me, Steve. Tell me now."_

"What…" His voice doesn't work. He's numb, and his lungs aren't breathing right and his lips don't form the words he wants to say. "What?"

"We're going to find a way to get rid of it," Tony promises. "I swear."

He struggles, pulling away from them. He's horrified. _Horrified._ Hands grab him and hold him tighter. "What is this?" he desperately cries. "What?"

"Steve, please… Don't get upset."

"What does it say?"

"Steve–"

"Tell me what it says!"

Clint is right there. His eyes are bright. "Submission. It says you submitted," he says. Steve stiffens at the mere mention of the word. None of them miss it. "But we know you didn't. You never submitted. _Never._"

"If you did, she would not have done this," Thor adds. "She would not have felt the need to make such a show of it."

"She had you tied to her bed, Steve," Tony says. "If you were willing, why the fuck would she need to do that? You weren't willing. That's why."

"You were stronger than her," Bruce says. He's not as confident as the others, though not because he doesn't believe in Steve. He's afraid of the pain this will cause. "You were stronger. She couldn't force you down."

"You fought her every step of the way. _Every_ step."

"She couldn't make you do anything."

"And even if she did, it wasn't your choice. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault!"

The words bombard him. He feels utterly overwhelmed. Exposed. Lost. Beaten down and torn apart and completely at their mercy. "Steve." Natasha's quiet tone cuts through the words and muted despair and forced confidence. She pushes her way through the group and takes his shirt and lowers it back down over his chest. "She never got what she wanted from you." There's faith in her voice. Faith in him. They all have so much faith in him. That terrifies him more than the mark on his chest. They mean well, he thinks, but all it's doing is putting pressure on him. Pressure to stand up and agree. Pressure to confirm that what they want to believe is true. "You know in your heart. She never took your soul."

Natasha is steadfast and so sure. He wants to share her certainty. His chest suddenly burns where she marked him, burns and stings and hurts where it hasn't before, and his heart aches like he's dying.

* * *

Before he sees the word carved into his chest, all he wants to do is forget. After, all he wants is to remember. It's hard to make himself look into the shadows and try to parse nightmare from reality and lies from truths. It's hard to go back into the pain and the humiliation and the degradation. It's hard, but he does it anyway. He needs to know now. All the long, awful moments she had him in her hands. Thirty days filled with agony and screams and blood and touches he'll never forget. He faces all of that again for a chance to learn the truth.

All those awful moments lead to the one he can't remember at all.

_Tell me you love me, Steve._

He can't remember if he did. He needs to. He needs to know if she won. He needs to know if the word she cut into his skin is a lie. He needs to know if he submitted. He needs to know if he gave her what she wanted.

He needs to justify their faith in him.

* * *

"Bruce." Bruce turns at Steve's soft call. He's sitting up in the bed, pale but his eyes are clearer than they have been for days. Bruce abandons the tablet computer he's reading and turns to him. Ever since they showed him the scar, they've been even more uncertain around him. They've each apologized again; for surrounding him, for coming at him like that, for insisting he see the remnants of his captivity. He's not as upset about that, this shade of trauma (he's not even sure they know of the times… He tries not to think about it). He's upset that they lied. He's upset that he can't remember.

And he's upset that she did this to him. There was no reason. _No goddamn reason_. He remembers her holding his head up by his hair. He remembers the knife against his throat and her angry (terrified) voice. _"He bent to my will. He begged for me to love him."_

_"No!"_

_"You bitch! Let him go!"_

_"Take his place, Thor, or I'll take his life. What little I have left of it."_ A laugh._ "Serve me, or I will kill him."_ If she reduced him to a bargaining chip, as leverage against the one she really wanted, why do this? Why put this spell upon him? It hurts, and not just physically. He feels violated again. He feels betrayed, both by her for wanting Thor instead of him (_God, you're so screwed up to even think that_) and betrayed by himself for letting her do this (_It's not your fault, Steve. You fought her every step of the way, so she had to do it)._ If all she wanted was to show the team (his world) that he submitted to her, she could have just cut her curse into his chest in the beginning and be done with it. Who cares if it's true? _It's not true. You never gave in. You never gave in!_

He feels so dirty.

"Do you think maybe I can take a shower?" His voice is hoarse, and his request surprises him. Wanting things again is difficult and random.

Bruce looks surprised, too. He purses his lips a second and shrugs. "I don't see why not. Let me help you."

He wants to snap that he doesn't need help, but he knows he does. He hasn't really been on his feet in two weeks (if he's honest with himself, it's been much longer – not since he tried to escape). Bruce is patient and gentle, looping an arm around his back after pulling the blankets away from his legs. His first step is dizzying and difficult. His next is less so. A few more after that and he's bearing almost all of his weight on his shattered ankles and damaged abdomen, and he's not panting so hard and hurting so miserably. It's a small victory. Thor has said that to him over and over again. _"Small victories, Steve. One at a time. You will get yourself back."_

It feels so damn good to be up and walking away, unbound, his feet carrying him of his own volition, his chin up and his eyes up and his heart strong. "You want help in there?" Bruce asks. He shakes his head. He thinks he can do this. Mostly he doesn't want anyone to see him. Not the scar on his body. Not his body.

Inside the bathroom, he stands at the vanity. Bruce gets him some towels and a clean pair of sweats and closes the door behind him, making him promise to call if he needs anything. Steve stands still for a long time. He wants the shower, but he forgot about the huge mirror in his bathroom. His eyes catch sight of his reflection before he remembers, and he sharply looks away. He didn't even really see himself. He doesn't want to. His hands shake as he pulls off his shirt. His injuries pain him, and it's physically difficult to move, and memories push against his control. He ignores them and finishes undressing. He's not thinking. He's not seeing. He's not hurting.

A moment later he's in the shower. Hot water, as hot as it can go, beats against his back like a million tiny, stinging knives. He lets it burn him. The steam grows so thick he can hardly see. He grabs the soap, a white, useless lump that squishes and flattens beneath his fingers, and washes. Slowly at first. Gingerly, because even though things are healing, they still are tender and sore. But then he sees that scar across his chest and he rubs at it harder and harder, soapy, bloody water slipping down his body and into the drain. He washes and washes and washes, but it doesn't come off. _It doesn't come off_.

Somehow he ends up on the shower floor, shaking and panting and wide-eyed and fighting and _fighting_ to not go back there. _They came for me. They got me out._

_She marked you, Steve._

"God damn it," he moans, dropping his head to his knees.

Eventually the water becomes cold and miserable, and he wearily finds his feet and climbs out. The towel is there on the counter, and he grabs it and wraps it around himself. He limps to the vanity, breathing heavily in the dense, humid air. He sags against the firm granite of the counter, the cool marble under his toes, the air hugging him as water and sweat cling to him like a second skin. The mirror is fogged now, but he catches blurry glimpses of muscles. His chest. He reaches his hand slowly, tentatively, to it and wipes the condensation away.

That bloody, aggravated scar stares right back at him. _It's not coming off._

_"Get it off of me!"_

He gives a ragged cry of frustration and drives his fist into the mirror. Bruce hears it shattering, but he doesn't come in.

* * *

While he's sleeping later that afternoon, Tony and Clint and Bruce clean the mess of broken glass. But Tony doesn't replace the mirror. Not for a while anyway.

* * *

He's getting better. They tell him that. He tells himself that. He's free from his room, up and walking around though his steps are still taken slowly and gingerly. They cheer for him and hug him and smile in genuine joy and elation the first time he emerges to eat with them. He smiles too. It's an uncertain smile, but it's still a smile.

They are careful around him. Everyone knows it. Their embraces are light and wary, as though they fear they will trigger a flashback with their nearness. Sometimes they do. Their smiles are easy but worried, as though they believe if they accept his recovery as the truth, it may disappear on them and go back into the nightmare from which they've just barely escaped. They stop talking about _it _(this is what it is now, an _it_ that can be ignored and disregarded and maybe even forgotten). They talk about sports and movies. They talk about other missions, other people, life as it had been before Captain America and Black Widow were sent to South Korea. They joke and smile and laugh and pull Steve into it because denial is easier than processing the damage. And there's damage. He's getting better, but they all know it's there. It's the scar on Steve's chest that still won't heal, that's hidden under bandages and polos and button down shirts and sweatshirts and jackets.

He's not sleeping. Before, when his body was so beaten and battered, he needed it so badly that he didn't have a choice. Now… He can't. It's pathetic and irrational, but he's afraid if he closes his eyes, he'll wake up back there. His bed will turn into her bed. She'll be right there beside him, as vile and controlling as she always was, holding him down and whispering her lies. He's more afraid of that than he is of the nightmares, although those are horrible as well. He decides early on that he just won't sleep. He doesn't need it. He'll go until he can't anymore, and when he collapses from utter exhaustion, the sleep will be so deep that he won't be able to dream.

It's a load of nonsense, and he knows it, but it's all he can do.

The team notices. They catch him wavering on his feet, drifting during conversations, succumbing to fatigue. His face is perpetually pale and his eyes are lined in darkness. He tells them he's fine when they ask. He tells Clint not to worry and Bruce that he's having bad dreams but it's okay and Tony to mind his own business because he can handle this himself. He tells Thor everything is alright, that it's about small victories, right? His time with her taught him to be a good liar. At least, he thinks it has because they seem to accept what he says. Deep down he doesn't want them to. Deep down he's screaming.

It's Natasha who finally pulls him back from another edge. He falls asleep on the couch one night, intending on watching something on TV to keep himself awake. It doesn't work, and he's down and back in hell. Every time he goes back he remembers things he didn't the last time. It was always so cold in her bedroom, cold so that when he was left to hang through the night or chained to the floor, he was shivering and freezing. Shivering reminded him he was alive, but it made him _long_ for the ice. She tasted like blood because she always kissed him when his lips were bleeding. She had no freckles, no moles or scars or discolorations, not a single blemish on her flawless skin. Her bedroom faced the east because when the sun came up it shone right in his face and he could see all the horrors from the night before. Her sheets were dark red, and his blood looked even darker when it dripped on them.

"Steve?"

He jerks awake. He recoils and pushes back across the couch before he remembers that he's not supposed to move. He's not supposed to speak. "Steve, easy. It's just me. You were having a nightmare."

She's bathed in the light of the huge flat screen television, and it's making her face glow. Her hair is red, but not as red as those sheets. And her skin has marks. Tiny imperfections. Lines of worry around her eyes and lips and creases through her brow. Small scars. There's no malice in her eyes. No hunger. Just concern. "Do you want to go to bed?"

He shakes his head. He can't make his voice work. He's not supposed to speak.

She's gone for a bit, melding back into the shadows and the flickering light of the TV, and he's terrified for the moment when he can't see her. Terrified she'll come back and terrified she won't. She does come back, and she drapes a blanket over his trembling body. She smiles tenderly. "Do you want me to go?"

She's asked that before. He shakes his head again. She looks uncertain. Then her lips relax from their frown and her eyes shift from worry to a soft shine of affection. "Sit up a sec." He follows her commands, and she slides her slight form beneath his upper body. He's tense for a moment; he can't help it even though he _knows_ what resistance means. What she'll do to him if he fights back. "Shhh. It's okay. Just trying to get you more comfortable."

He makes himself believe her, because if she wants to hurt him, she will and he can't stop her. But she doesn't. Instead she pulls him down so his head is pillowed on her lap. Her fingers lightly slip through his hair. She doesn't yank or tug. She doesn't demand. He's tense and tortured under her touch, but he relaxes as the seconds slip away and nothing happens. Weariness makes his eyelids slip closed again. "Is this okay?" she asks.

He doesn't answer, but it is.

* * *

After that, he sleeps. Natasha finds him every night while he's nervously dancing along the well-trodden paths of exhaustion and fear, and she takes his hand and leads him to rest. To some small measure of peace. At first, it's in the common room, on the couches. Then she dispenses with that and takes him to his room. His room. His bed. Not hers. It happens at all hours of the night because he still fights to stay awake, fights his own body, fights his dreams. Every time he does, though, she comes to him. She comes and battles his demons with him. She puts him to bed and stays beside him, all night sometimes to ward away the darkness. One night he lets her pull off his shoes and his shirt before tucking him in. The next he stands wearily near his bed as she works his jeans down his hips and legs. "You tell me if it's not okay," she insists as she helps him get his pajamas on. He's shaking and there are tears in his eyes. She sees that. "I don't want to hurt you."

She never does. He stops shaking.

Some nights she sleeps in one of the chairs in his room. Others she sleeps beside him. He wakes up early because his room faces the east and bright sunlight spills inside and shines right in his face. But there are no horrors from the night before. She's next to him, a respectful few inches between them as though she'd worked all night to maintain that distance. She's dressed and so is he. She's sleeping peacefully. She's calm and soft and beautiful.

He's not afraid to wake up anymore. And he's not afraid to close his eyes again and go back to sleep. As crazy as it seems (and it is crazy), this is the only time he feels safe.

* * *

Steve still can't remember what he said. In that last moment, where she was cutting him. He still can't remember.

* * *

"You shouldn't be working yourself so hard," Clint says. He goes down to the gym to burn off some pent-up energy (since the Avengers have been effectively grounded since Steve's abduction), and he finds Steve there, pounding the shit out of a punching bag. Steve's doing a damn good job of hiding it, but Clint can tell he's not ready for this. He's sweating like mad. His footwork is sloppy and sluggish. He's wincing with every blow. But he doesn't stop. He doesn't even look up. "Steve." Still he doesn't turn. He hits harder and harder and harder. The loud _thwack thwack_ of his fists striking fast and furious echoes throughout the gym. "Steve, stop!" Clint grabs the bag and holds it, saving the poor thing from further pummeling, and nearly gets punched himself. "Stop!"

Steve stops. He backs off, a little dazed like he was in a trance. Maybe he was. He's breathing heavily, his chest heaving up and down, his white t-shirt stuck to his skin in perspiration. Clint can see the bandage under the damp fabric. Steve stumbles back a little, the grimace more pronounced now. "Take it easy," Clint softly admonishes, worried at that wince. "Banner said you could return to light physical activity. This doesn't seem light."

"I'm fine," Steve curtly answers. "Leave me alone."

Clint shakes his head. "Don't do this to yourself."

"Don't do this to myself?" Steve sniffs and wipes the sweat from his brow with his forearm and goes back at it. Clint has no choice but to get out of the way. He can't stand against Steve's strength. "That's damn funny, Barton. What exactly am I doing to myself?"

"Come on. Don't be like this," Clint says. He wants to touch Steve, but he's not brave enough. Not with the dark look in Steve's eyes and his muscles bulging with power through that sweat-soaked shirt and those fists slamming. "We just want to help you."

"I don't want help!" Steve snaps. He finally meets Clint's gaze, and there's a hint of fear and regret in his eyes. Disgust. Then he goes back to it, and Clint steps aside. "I just want to hit something."

_Beat it until it breaks or you do._

* * *

"You're right," Clint says to Bruce later that evening. He's usually a cool customer, calm and collected, but Bruce can see how rattled he is. How riled and uncertain. Clint sniffs and shakes his head and the two of them look out over the Manhattan skyline. "We're not equipped to deal with this."

Bruce doesn't know what to say.

* * *

She told him he was weak. Weak and pathetic. _Nothing more than a handsome face_. Hardly worthy of her affections because she's had men more beautiful, more powerful, than him before. She has her eyes on a prince, on a future king. And furthermore he's a man who let a woman own him. She used that word. That time she didn't placate him or dress it in false affection or delude him. She used it to demean him. When she was angry, she was vicious, and all those lies fell away. He was hers. Her victim. Her servant, and he had nothing that she didn't give him. He was fortunate that she gave him anything at all. All his strength and resilience and determination and bravery… All of that meant nothing. She told him she didn't need magic to control him. He was weak, and he couldn't stop her.

He decides he's never going to be weak again.

* * *

_Thwack. Thwack._

The blows hit his back.

_Don't scream._

_"This will continue until you scream," _she whispered in his ear. _"Stubbornness does not suit any servant of mine. I will bleed it from you if I must."_

_Don't. Don't do it. Don't let go._

_"Beg me for mercy. Beg me to save you."_

_Don't!_

His fists hit and hit and hit. "If you wish to hit something," Thor says from the back of the gym, "then fight me."

Steve stops. He pushes the hair off his forehead and breathes harshly through a dry mouth, watching the God of Thunder emerge from the shadows. His blond hair is loose, his obstinate jaw is clenched, and his eyes are full of confidence. He looks tall and strong, with muscles that have crushed countless enemies. He looks like the Prince of Asgard even dressed as he is in gray sweats. Steve closes his mouth and fights to catch his breath as he goes back to the punching bag. "I don't want to fight you."

"Yes, you do," Thor argues quietly. In two gigantic strides, he is on the other side of the mats on the floor. His fists aren't wrapped. He has to strike something truly hard for it to hurt him. As strong and resilient as Steve is, Thor is much more so. Thor can stand against anything.

_It should have been you._

Steve stares at him. The thought comes from the dark places inside his heart, dark places that weren't there before the Enchantress took him. The places he despises. He can deal with the pain. He can overcome the trauma. But this? This hatred? "Fine." He breathes shortly and pulls the tape from his hands and unwraps the protective coverings from his fists, too. Thor watches but says nothing to dissuade him.

They circle each other for a few tense moments. They've sparred in the past plenty of times. These were friendly fights in the spirit of competition and training. Thor is stronger than him and faster, but not so much stronger or faster than Steve doesn't pose a challenge. And they've always held back before, avoiding the strikes and blows that would hurt one another. "You gonna pull your punches?" Steve asks warily.

Thor is certain. "Yes."

"Don't. I don't want you to," Steve says, and he goes at him, quick and hard. Thor isn't prepared for the attack, and Steve drops him with a hard blow to the face. He sweeps his legs out from under him, and Thor hits the mats hard on his back. Steve stands over him, smiling a harsh smile. "If you wanna fight, let's fight."

Thor rolls smoothly to his feet. He is more surprised than hurt. Surprised at Steve's ruthlessness. Steve never has been before. "I do not wish to hurt you."

"It's a little late for that now, don't you think?"

"No." That angers Steve and he charges again. They fight in silence, moving faster than the eye can see, trading quick punches and kicks and counters and blocks. Thor has the advantage of brute strength, but Steve is a master martial artist. More than this, though, Thor is unwilling to hit back, and Steve is slowed by his wounds. Neither of them has a clear edge over the other, and the fight goes on for a long time. It wears them both.

Steve's knuckles split, his weakened right wrist throbbing, as he lands a particularly hard punch to Thor's jaw. It sends the god tumbling back across the room, skittering across the mats when he lands roughly. Thor breathes heavily and wipes blood from his nose as he struggles to his knees. Steve breathes heavily too as he falls to his. He cradles his hand in his lap. "Why'd she take me?" he asks. His voice is rough with emotion. As his energy is spent, so is his composure. "Huh? Why'd she take me when she wanted you?"

"I cannot answer that," Thor says. His own voice is weak. "You know I cannot."

That angers Steve even more. "Why?" he rages. He staggers to his feet and tries to ball his right hand back into a fist, but it won't do it. He doesn't care. _"Why?"_

"You defied her," Thor answers.

Steve growls and goes at him again. Thor catches his advance, side-stepping and kicking at him but only to stop him. He grabs Steve's arm and swings him around before knocking him down. He pins him against the mats for a second, but only a second. "Get off of me!" Steve snarls. There's panic and rage. Thor immediately releases him, but Steve doesn't move away. Instead he lunges at Thor, no grace or control, only raw power and fury. He tackles him and lands blow after blow on Thor's face. "It should have been you! She should have done this to you!"

Thor is bloodied and rattled, but he catches Steve's next strike. He doesn't push him off, doesn't push him back. But his expression softens. "Yes," he agrees, "she should have. I wish she had. I wish this had never come to you. But she didn't take me. She took you."

Steve tries to get his hand free, but he can't. Thor's grip is too strong and his wrist is weakened from the broken bones. He grunts and struggles and eyes burn in frustrated tears. Thor doesn't let him go. "She took you because she thought she could break you. But she could not."

Steve stops fighting for a moment. "You don't know that."

"Yes, I do, because I know you," Thor returns. He lets Steve's hand go and pushes him off. He doesn't get to his feet, though. Panting and wincing, he kneels beside his friend. Steve watches him, lost and aching. "I know you. You are stronger than what she did to you. You are stronger than her. You are stronger than I am."

"That's not true."

"I do not think I would have been able to endure," Thor admits softly. "I do not know if I could have resisted her." He pushes himself to his feet gingerly. He grimaces again, rubbing his jaw experimentally. Then he sighs and reaches his hand down to Steve. Steve stares at it wearily and warily for a moment. He grasps it with his left hand, and Thor pulls him up. "If you wish to fight, to hurt me for what happened to you, then fight. Hit me if it makes you feel better. I deserve no less, and I can stand your strength where no one else can." That was what he wanted. It hurts to admit it, but it was. Now the thought makes him feel ill and ashamed. Thor shakes his head and pushes Steve's left hand back to his chest. "But if you wish to fight me to punish yourself, I will not be party to that. I will not hit you back, Steve. I never will."

He deflates. The anger rushes from his body on a shaking breath. He hurts all over. He pushed himself too hard, and now he's going to pay for it. He resisted, and now he's going to suffer. He closes his eyes. "I don't want to fight you," he says softly.

Thor takes him by the shoulders and tugs him into his embrace. Steve succumbs as Thor hugs him tighter and tighter. "It takes true strength to stand against so much evil," Thor reminds him, "not just strength of body but strength of heart. She could not defeat that. She could not even abide by it. That is why she took you. You should not be ashamed." Thor leans back and smiles fondly. "You should be proud."

* * *

Thor helps him limp back upstairs. They're both sore and bleeding, and when the others see them, they rush over. "What the hell happened?" Bruce asks. His worry is tinged with disappointment.

"It is nothing," Thor answers as he lowers Steve's body onto one of the couches. He wipes at his oozing nose and grimaces slightly. His face is covered in sweat. He looks like he's been downright pummeled. "We are both well."

"Damn it, Steve, your hand–"

Steve grunts from where he's slumped on the sofa. "It's fine," he says. He's sore and exhausted and oddly giddy. He hasn't been drunk in years, not since before the serum, but he vaguely remembers it feeling like this. Distant and pleasant and a little numb. "Really."

Tony comes with an ice pack that he without warning and unceremoniously presses to Steve's swollen cheek. And Bruce arrives with another for Steve's hurting hand. He holds the frigid pack over his split and swollen knuckles. "Guys…" he starts, shaking his head.

Thor collapses on the couch beside Steve and reaches over wearily to pat his friend's leg. "It is but a small sacrifice. The captain needed to work out his frustrations," he explains.

"The captain kicked your ass," Steve corrects. And he laughs. It's rough and a tad tormented, but it's a laugh. It's the first they've heard since before he was kidnapped. When Thor glances at him with his blackened eye, the god's battered lips stretch into a smile. He looks pathetic. Steve laughs louder, curling a little as the motion stresses his sore midsection.

"It is childish of me to argue, but I must. I let you win," Thor replies, turning back to stare up at the ceiling. Clint rolls his eyes and offers the god a paper towel for his nose.

"No chance in hell," Steve retorts. "Ow." Bruce glances up irately but isn't dissuaded as he tightly holds the ice pack to Steve's damaged fingers. "Thor, your face broke my hand." He laughs again.

Thor laughs, too. "It's not funny," Bruce reprimands. "You two could have really hurt each other. You could have made it worse."

"I don't think it can possibly get worse," Steve says as his chuckles die. He takes the ice pack from Tony and holds it himself. The others are all still at that, bothered and uncertain, trying to gauge their captain's mood. But there's no anger. No grief or depression. No fear. It's just a statement. He sags deeper into the couch cushions with a sigh, a tiny bit of a stupid smile lingering on his face. He closes his eyes. "It's fine, though. Alright? Thor's fine. I'm fine. We're all fine. Really. Aren't we?"

Tony drops his hands to Steve's shoulders. He doesn't flinch. "Yup."

* * *

They tell him they think he's getting better. Slowly but surely, he starts to think so, too.

* * *

There's a world beyond Stark Tower. Steve hasn't been a part of it for so long. It's ironic that he should be afraid, he who spent seventy years frozen while life and time went on around him. This is only two months that he's been gone, but he feels infinitely more different and less confident this time than he did before. Two months versus seventy years. It's strange and unsettling.

They start slow. A walk in Central Park. Resuming his morning jogging routine around the city. Eventually a trip back to SHIELD Headquarters. Clint goes with him everywhere. Steve never asked him to, but he's right there, a persistent second shadow. He doesn't make a big deal about it. Clint never makes a big deal about anything. To him, it's almost like none of this ever happened. Almost.

They go out to lunch a lot. Clint doesn't like sitting still. He never has and he never will. And Steve is tired of feeling cooped up in the Tower, even though he's wary of going back out into the world. Returning to a state of _normal_ still seems a tad unreachable, even if he's nearly completely healed and everything is slowly becoming a memory. Today they go to some hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant near the Tower. The small eatery is a bit of dump, dark and shadowy, the sort of place one would think that Clint would like. He swears they make the best stir-fry in the city. As Steve digs into the steaming plate in front of him, he has to agree.

"Fury wants to see you," Clint announces quietly after swallowing a mouthful of soda. He sets his can back to the table, watching Steve intently for his reaction. Steve has none. He shifts a pile of rice to the other side his plate. His appetite suddenly fails him. It's been like this recently. He's famished, but when the food gets there, the sight of it turns his stomach. Bruce tells him it's a side-effect of the serum working so arduously to heal his body. He could do with some consistency. "He wants you evaluated by the SHIELD docs and psychiatrists. They need to see if you're ready to resume your duties."

That turns his stomach even more. He looks up at Clint. "What do you think?"

Clint looks a little surprised by the question. "I can tell them to go fuck off," he says nonchalantly, and he would. Steve knows that. Clint's a SHIELD agent, but he's an Avenger first and foremost. They all are. They've closed ranks. "Mostly Fury's just worried about you. This is his way of showing it. It's a formality." Steve knows that. As things have gotten easier, logical thoughts have trumped emotional ones. At least most of the time. "But it's up to you, Cap. If you want to talk to them, I can arrange it. If you don't, you don't."

"No, I mean…" It's hard to ask the question. "Do you think I'm ready?"

Clint looks even more surprised. It isn't like Steve to defer to other people on things like this. He's their leader, their captain, so it's his opinion that usually matters. He's the one who judges the situation and determines the best course of action. He's the one with the plans, the orders, the decisions. He listens to his team and weighs their advice, but he makes the call in the end. "I don't know. It's been a month since we brought you home." That doesn't really mean anything, and they both know it. "What does Bruce say?"

"That I'm as healed as I can be," Steve says. He can't keep the defeat from his tone, and his chest burns just a little. The scar hurts sometimes. It throbs.

"Then you're ready," Clint says simply with half a nonchalant shrug that's not too convincing. Steve doesn't feel confident even as Clint picks up his chop-sticks and goes back to his lunch. It's not so simple, he thinks. It's not so easy. It can't be. To go back out there and be who he had been before the Enchantress took him… It can't be so easy. She said it would be impossible.

An awkward moment of unsatisfied silence comes between them, and Steve drops his gaze to his plate. "You know, it seems to me she wanted to destroy Captain America. Pull all the other things away and that's what's left. She wanted to destroy Captain America." Clint shrugs a little again and looks up from his lunch. "Best way to get over that is to show yourself that she didn't."

Steve sits another second, hesitant. But then Clint smiles slightly and he goes back to his lunch. Steve watches him eat. He goes back to his, too. Maybe it really is that simple.

* * *

He goes to see the SHIELD doctors. He meets with Fury, nods and accepts apologies for what happened and tells the Director it wasn't his fault. He promises to be ready to lead the team. But he doesn't go to see the psychiatrists. He's not ready for that yet. He's not sure when he will be. Maybe never.

_Be patient. It will get better. It just takes time._ Steve knows it can't be that simple. If that was true, he should have remembered by now. He should have been table to figure out what happened at the end. He can't.

* * *

Bruce asks Steve to come down to his lab. This is the fourth time this week. Steve keeps obliging him because Bruce is just trying to help. He keeps telling himself that and tries not to be frustrated or bothered or pained by the things Bruce is doing. He's been examining the scar. Taking blood and skin and muscle samples and scanning it with machines. Trying to treat it. Trying to understand what's preventing the serum from healing it on a cellular level (at least, that's what Bruce is telling him). It can't be magic. It can't be a curse. There's a physical, biological reason for it, and Bruce is bound and determined to figure out what it is.

Steve's not so sure there's an answer to be found. And he doesn't want to keep doing this. Not only is it uncomfortable, but he doesn't like looking at the scar. He's become extremely proficient at showering and dressing without seeing it. He keeps it wrapped and bandaged. He always wears a shirt even to sleep where he never used to. This isn't to say he hasn't looked at it. He has. He has examined it carefully during his stronger moments. He's stared at himself in the mirror. The word (Thor says it's a word) looks the same to him backwards as it does forward. It's a sprawling, ugly thing that spreads from shoulder to shoulder over his sternum and across his chest. It's always red and hot, as inflamed and swollen and angry as it was when she put it there. The rest of him looks like _him,_ blond hair and blue eyes and the strength and physique and constitution the serum gave him. He's still a little drawn and pale with darkness around his eyes, but he's himself. He doesn't look like he was held captive and brutally tortured for a month. Except for the scar.

And it's not really a scar, when he thinks about it. They all call it that, but _scar_ implies healing. It hasn't healed at all.

Hence Bruce's efforts.

"I've got a new salve to try," Bruce says as Steve slowly walks inside the lab. He's sitting at his laptop, his glasses shining in the light. "It's… Well, I think it'll help. Bolster the serum hopefully. You want to take off your shirt? Come sit here."

It doesn't occur to Bruce that maybe Steve doesn't want to. Steve is still having some trouble about being assertive. Sometimes. His moods fluctuate (Bruce tells him that's a symptom of PTSD – Bruce has an explanation for everything, it seems) and sometimes he can't admit what he wants to himself, let alone to his friends, especially if he thinks it's contrary to what they want. So he lingers by the door. It takes Bruce a moment to realize Steve isn't moving. "Steve? You okay?" For being a scientific genius, Bruce can do a poor job at reading people, especially when he's embroiled in his work.

Steve doesn't answer and follows his directions. He sits on the stool and gingerly pulls off his polo shirt and sets it to the table beside him. Bruce shuffles around his lab bench by his laptop for a moment, and Steve struggles anew to sit still. This takes him places he doesn't want to go. He tries not to go there.

He jumps when Bruce's gloved hand lands on his bare shoulder. He can't help his tension, and his body feels wound tight and his heart is thundering in fearful anticipation. They've done this so many times. Why is this time any different?

There's no answer. Bruce doesn't seem to understand that. "Steve?" he asks. His voice is softer and full of concern now. He gingerly sets his hand back on Steve's shoulder. Steve isn't brave enough to look behind him. She told him to keep his eyes forward, so he does. "We don't have to do this."

He gets himself back. He does all the time now when the flashbacks come. He's realizing he's stronger than them. "No, it's alright," he says. Bruce isn't convinced. He comes around to Steve's front. Finally Steve musters the courage to look at him. "Really. I'm fine."

"You don't have to lie. This isn't pleasant for you. I know that. It's my fault for suggesting we keep trying." He looks horrified, and Steve immediately feels guilty. "I've been forcing you into doing something you don't want to do."

"No, no, Bruce," Steve returns. "It's not like that. You're not making me do anything. I know I have choices." Bruce still doesn't look convinced. "I'd stop you if I couldn't take it, believe me. I stood up to an Asgardian lunatic for a month. I think I could stand up to you, no offense."

Bruce laughs a little. "None taken, I think."

Steve shakes his head. "And it does hurt. But… I don't know. I don't feel like it's worth your trouble."

"You shouldn't have to live with this."

"I know. But it is what it is." _It is what it is._

Bruce is surprised at that. Then he's relieved. He's relieved at the calm look of acceptance in Steve's eyes. At the peaceful tone of his voice. "Wow," he says, smiling slowly. "You're… You're a better man than anyone gives you credit for, and people give you a lot of credit. Not that you don't deserve it, Steve. You do."

"Thanks. I guess."

Bruce sighs and looks down at the tube of gel in his hands. He lifts his shoulders a little and raises his chin, chewing the inside of his cheek. "Listen, it's not a bother for me to keep looking. I won't if you want to stop. But if there's an answer, I want to find it. I want to make this better." Steve winces and starts shaking his head. "This is what I can do to help. It's what I'm here for."

Steve thinks about that. He really does. And it chases away the cold feeling in his chest. "Okay," he says. "If you think you can make it heal, I'm willing to try."

* * *

She tried to bend him to her will in other ways. He wouldn't tell her he loved her, but that was the ultimate goal, and she was intelligent and cruel enough to realize she had to work him up to that point. As her servant, she tried to force him to fight on her behalf. To kill on her command. His will was strong, though. She was prepared to coerce him as much as she could, to tailor the situation as much as possible to push him and goad him into following her orders. She brought her servants before him, the ones who'd assaulted him, and let him loose of his chains and told him to exact his revenge. She ordered him to kill them, to make them hurt as badly as they had hurt him. He stood, hobbled and bleeding and lost in a storm of emotions with the men who'd reduced him to begging for mercy cowering before him. She told him to break their necks. It would be a small act of strength. She commanded him to murder them. He could do it. He wanted to.

But he didn't.

She broke his fingers for turning on her instead of turning on them. At the time, it was just one more thing that earned him punishment that he could barely stand to take. He realizes much later what a tremendous victory it was.

* * *

"It's a process, Cap," Tony says. He's fiddling with something on a table in one of his innumerable workshops all over the Tower. Steve comes here to draw sometimes. He used to like to draw in the quiet, but he doesn't anymore. The silence lets too much come out of his head, and he can't concentrate. He can't see anything he wants to see. So he's been hanging around Tony, who's _never_ quiet. There's always music and yelling and clanging and banging and JARVIS reprimanding Stark about this or reminding him of that. Controlled chaos. Once upon a time (before the Enchantress – it bothers him that he's started dividing his life like this again. Before the serum. Before the war. Before the ice. Before the Avengers. And now before the Enchantress.) Stark's constant talking and motion and madness used to aggravate him. He appreciates it now. It's distracting.

He's been trying to sketch. He's been trying to make things feel right again. His life was reduced to the barest of sensations. Touch. Thirst and hunger. Exhaustion. Pain. Pleasure. He's been trying to draw the other things back in, the complexities, the beauty and the things he used to have. Friendships. Responsibilities. Confidence. Memories. A past and a present and a future. He's been trying to color in a life that was starkly turned to only blacks and grays and reds. It's harder than he thought it would be.

Tony has a pen between his teeth and goggles on his grease-streaked face and engine dirt all over his hands. "You don't just build things. Like this piece of shit." He glares at the reactor prototype he was working on for a new repulsor array for the SHIELD helicarrier. "It's fundamentally screwed up. I think I made a mistake somewhere back in the beginning, and now I need to start over." He rolls his eyes a little. He never starts over. He's stubborn like that. "I dunno. Maybe I can fix it."

Steve sits on one of the stools next to the window, slumped over the shiny workbench with his head buried on his folded arms. It's late. They're the only two awake in the Tower. He had a nightmare, and he didn't want to wake Natasha who was curled asleep in his bed. He couldn't get himself back to sleep, and he didn't want to be alone. He knew Stark would be up. Tony's always up. "You can. You do it all the time. And you make it look so easy," he says.

"It is, sometimes," Tony explains. He looks up, staring at the tense lines of Steve's shoulders. "You wanna talk about it?"

Steve shakes his head, wincing. He's tired. He rubs a hand down his face and straightens his body. He actually smiles, a small, sad thing that curls his lips. "You wanna hear about it?"

Tony wipes the sweat from his brow, smearing more grease. He grunts a laugh. "No, not really. I mean, I will if you really want to tell me. But I'm not–"

"It's alright, Stark. I don't want to." He shakes his head and looks out over the city. "Some things aren't worth it."

"Speaking as a fellow survivor of dark and fucked-up shit, I can whole-heartedly vouch for that," Tony says. He looks down at his own chest for the briefest second where the arc reactor used to be. He knows better than anyone how hard it is to fix something like this. How long it takes. But it is fixable. Everything is. "Like I said, Cap. It's a process."

* * *

Steve goes back to bed. Natasha is still there. Staring at her, he feels both pathetic and relieved. He can't sleep without her anymore. She's this force in his life, this anchor that keeps _her_ away from him. It's not rational. The Enchantress is dead. He's digested that and accepted it and made himself believe it. But logic's a poor shield against fear.

He wonders how much longer she's going to be willing to put up with this. With him. With his nightmares and terrors and ridiculous clinginess. God, when was it that he got so dependent on other people? That witch trained him to hate her touch. _Hate_ it. Her touch meant pain and violation and torture. But here he is, addicted to Natasha's touch and to the comfort he gets from it. To her warmth beside him and her arms around him and her hands on his body and her breath on the back of his neck. _Pathetic. She won't want you now. You're used and damaged and dirty._

He closes his eyes and climbs back into bed with her and breathes deeply of her and struggles to sleep. He struggles to forget that it hurts and that he still hates himself sometimes. They're his team. His family. It's okay. _That's what they're here for. _He's filling in his world, a piece at a time. With her. With them. _A process._

* * *

It's four months after the Enchantress took Steve and three months after the Avengers took him back that Fury calls for them to assemble. It's not a world crisis by any means (which is probably a good thing considering what happens), just a group of terrorists holding Heathrow hostage. They've all been waiting anxiously for this, knowing it was coming and dreading it in some respects and excited for it in others. The minute the order comes in, Steve goes to suit up with the others. But when he puts on his uniform and grabs his shield, his muscles fail him and his legs wobble beneath him and the world closes in around him and he can't breathe. The last time he wore his uniform and ran out to battle, the last time he held his shield and fought, she came for him.

He's terrified. The panic attack knocks him down and out and he's useless and cowering in the corner of his bedroom, too frightened to even notice as the others come in and try to pull him from the nightmare. He's wide-eyed, clutching at his chest and panting as though he's run miles and miles and miles. The scar is _burning_. "Steve, it's Natasha. You're safe. It's alright."

"He can't fight like this."

"Shit. What do we do?"

"I've got a sedative strong enough to calm him down. Just hold on, Steve."

"Someone must stay with him. Can we suffer the loss of another?"

There's more talk of numbers and plans and evacuations and hostages. He's not there. He should be. He should be the one giving the orders, the one figuring out what to do. The one _leading_ the team. But it's Tony who does his job. Clint and Bruce and Thor follow his command. And Natasha… "I'm going to stay with you," she promises. She sits beside him in the corner of his room after Bruce gives him the sedative and they leave. She's waiting. Waiting for him to calm down and come back to himself. He's shaking badly. "I got you, Steve. It's alright. This isn't your fault."

It is his fault.

She wants to get him into bed before he falls asleep. She's hesitant to undress him. She's not sure which horror he's reliving, but it's one she shares because she saw it, too, so she knows she needs to be careful and nonthreatening and distant. She gets his shield out of his hand. It's clenched so tightly in his fingers that his knuckles crack when the tension is finally released. She pulls his helmet off and sets it aside. She looks in his eyes, but she hardly touches him. She's afraid to. He's afraid she will.

Somehow she gets him into bed and goes to sit in the chair by the huge windows of his room. He's crying softly. At first he's holding the tears back, but as the sedative works and pushes the stress response down and alleviates the pain in his chest and head, his emotions burst loose of his restraint. She comes back to his bed as his sobs get rougher. And when she climbs beside him, dressed still in her own uniform, he jerks away from her for the first time in weeks. This sets him back. It seriously sets him back.

She's desperate to comfort him. _Desperate_. But she makes herself wait until he relaxes with her closeness. Then she chances touching his arm. There's cloth between them, the thick material of his uniform and her gloves. She takes them off and tosses them aside and moves closer. He's stiff and unyielding, far from her. Back where she can't follow him. It takes a long time before the tension leaves his muscles, even with the drug. "It's alright, Steve," she whispers into his ear. He's pliant and calm enough now that she's holding him, that his back is to her chest and her arms are wrapped around him tight. He's still shivering. Still. "It's going to be alright."

He tries to think that, but he falls asleep feeling lost and hopeless.

* * *

He's furious when he wakes up. Disgusted with himself. So humiliated and embarrassed. So _ashamed_. He jerks away from Natasha's embrace, startling her, and moves to the edge of the bed. He lowers his head into his hands and roughly rakes his fingers through his mussed hair. "God damn it," he moans. "I can't believe it…"

"Steve," Natasha calls from behind him. She tried to stay awake while he was sleeping in case he needed her, but she didn't make it. It's night now. It's black and the Tower is silent. "Don't do this to yourself. Don't."

"Don't do what?" he yells. He's off the bed, stumbling a little because things are stiff and his chest is still burning. "She's dead, Nat, and she still made me do what she wanted! God, who the hell am I anymore? What am I? Am I anything? Anything other than her…" He can't make himself say it. She opens her mouth to answer him, but he throws his arm out and points out the window to the thick and oppressive night beyond the Tower. "I should be out there, leading the team! I should be better than this! I should be stronger! I'm Captain America! I–"

He chokes on his words and loses his will. The wound on his chest throbs so sharply that he can't breathe like he's panicking again. "Steve," Natasha calls. He turns and looks at her, _really_ looks at her. His lungs are heaving and his eyes are wild with so much pain. She's so calm and collected. "Please don't do this."

He doesn't know if he wants to cry or scream or hit something or just _fucking quit_. He settles on standing there like a goddamn useless statue. His uniform feels so heavy. He sees his shield against the wall across the room, shining silver and red and blue. He feels unworthy of it. "You know what I've been thinking since she took you from us?" she asks. He doesn't respond. He doesn't know. He's not sure he cares anymore. "I've been thinking that there's nothing I can ever do to repay you for what you did for me."

He doesn't think he can stand one more person apologizing to him. They all have at one time or another. They've said it over and over again. It's been in their eyes, unspoken and hidden in conversations about other things, framing the context of every moment and every interaction. He doesn't think he can take one more promise that it'll be okay, one more assurance that he'll heal, one more ounce of faith in him. It's all nothing. _Pity._ "Don't."

"What you did for me–" she says.

"She made me take your place." The words are out of his mouth before he thinks twice of it. He says them so quietly and evenly and calmly despite what he's saying. He's confessing, in a sense. He doesn't know if they're aware of the extent of what happened to him. He doesn't think so. Her paling face immediately confirms that. His cheeks and ears burn. "She was angry that I wouldn't… And then I tried to run. And then she…" He lets out a harsh breath and averts his gaze. "I shouldn't be telling you about this."

He feels filthy. He's long since thought he's gotten over that, that feeling of worthlessness, that self-doubt and hatred. This one moment of failure makes him realize he hasn't gotten over anything.

They're still for what feels like forever. Steve is weary and burdened. Natasha is silent because the enormity of what he's told her is before her, vast and ugly and painful, and she can't look away. What he endured runs much deeper and blacker than she knew, than _any_ of them knew. It's difficult to accept that. It's difficult to even acknowledge it.

But she does. And she comes closer to him. He's swathed in shadows, still and stiff and barely breathing. She takes his hand and pulls him closer to her. He doesn't fight. Maybe the fight has truly been beaten out of him. "Tell me," she says softly. "Tell me everything."

"I don't know if I can," he admits.

"You can," she encourages, "and you should. It'll be alright, Steve. Really."

She waits until he's ready. Finally he is. He talks. She listens.

* * *

When the Avengers return the following morning, Steve and Natasha greet them at the door. They're a little beaten and a little tired but no worse for the wear, really. He is, too. "Listen, guys, I'm sorry. I let you down."

"Don't, Cap," Bruce says dismissively.

"I should have been out there with you. You needed me, and I wasn't there. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Clint assures him. "We're all fine. It's fine."

"No, no, it's not. You deserve a better leader than this."

"We deserve no such thing," Thor insists, "and we would follow no one else."

"I'd understand if you don't want me–"

"Save it, Rogers," Tony orders him. "You'll get them next time."

And just like that, it never happened.

* * *

After Steve tells Natasha the truth, everything he could bear to say to her, she understands more. It brings them even closer together. She doesn't tell the others. It's not her place to break his confidence, though she thinks it would help them all if they knew the whole story. Besides, some part of her feels honored that he trusts her enough to talk with her, to let her sleep beside him and touch him and hold him as he does even in the face of everything through which he suffered.

She cries the morning after he tells her everything. When she's alone in her room after spending the night listening to him the tears come hard and hot and fast. She hasn't cried so unreservedly in years, maybe ever. She cries for him. She cries for every second he spent in that hell. She's seen blackness. This doesn't compare. Her heart is supposed to be hard and impenetrable. It's not anymore.

He has trouble sleeping again after this, which she supposes makes sense given he dragged all that darkness out into the light. She's exhausted from staying awake with him, from helping him through the memories and nightmares. It's traumatic for them both, like aggravating a wound still swollen with unshed tears and tender with unresolved pain. Clint notices. He's worried for her and worried for him and worried in general that maybe everything that seemed to be improving really wasn't. He wants her to rest, to let someone else carry on in her stead. She tells him she needs to do this, both for her own guilty heart and for Steve. Steve won't trust anyone else, she says. He trusts her. Clint's not questioning that. He just wants her to make peace with what she was forced to witness.

Natasha knows that helping Steve heal is the only way she'll ever find peace again.

* * *

He didn't kill the men she brought before him on her behalf. That was a tremendous victory. He didn't fight for her. That was also one. He didn't bow before her, kneel before her, until there was no choice. He resisted even as she twisted him and pushed him and tormented him. He fought her every step of the way. Moment after moment. Beating after beating. Kiss after kiss. At the time it had seemed small and inconsequential because the end had been inevitable. _Small victories, Steve._

Small victories were tremendous victories, when he thought about it, and _every minute_ he'd stayed true to himself was one.

But still the only one that really seems to matter is that last minute. It's the only thing that seems to count. The one thing to make or break him. The final battle of a long and hard fought war. _"Tell me you love me, Steve. Tell me."_

If he lost there, he lost everything.

He just can't remember.

* * *

"Hey, Spangles. Thanks for coming."

"What's up? You sounded excited. That's not usually a good thing."

"You kidding? It's usually an awesome thing." Tony holds up something that looks like a small gun and waves Steve closer. "Like this. Give me your arm."

"Huh?" Steve eyes him warily.

"Came up with a little something. Come here." He hesitates a moment more, but he decides this is Tony and Tony may be more trouble than anyone else he knows most of the time but he's always got the best intentions at heart. So he comes closer and leans over Stark's shoulder. There's a tiny chip on the workbench. It's a small silver thing, barely bigger than a pencil eraser. "This little baby is a subcutaneous tracking device. You know what that is?"

"Like a homing beacon?"

Tony smiles. "Something like that, only better. The chip's almost impossible to detect unless you know where to look. It hooks directly into the computer system here at the Tower. Not SHIELD. Not anybody else. So if you go missing ever again, I can activate it remotely and find you. Immediately."

Steve doesn't know what to make of this. He floods with nervousness for a second. "Tony, I–"

"It's never happening again, Cap. I mean it. Never. With this, I can know within minutes where you are _anywhere_ on the planet. Within minutes. No secret lairs. No nothing. Nobody can take you. Nobody is ever going to take _any _of us again."

Steve is touched. His chest fills with warmth. "Tony–"

"Don't worry." He holds up his arm. There's a small, bloody dot near the crook of his elbow. "Already tested it on me. And it's mandatory. This time I'm giving the orders. Sorry. Everybody gets one." He smiles cheekily. "Now don't be a wuss. Give me your arm. It'll only sting a second."

Steve smiles a little. This is Tony trying to help. This is Tony trying to make sure he never sees Captain America frightened ever again. Steve hands Tony his arm, and the inventor pushes the muzzle of his gun into the soft flesh of Steve's forearm. It doesn't even sting. "There. We good?"

"Yeah, we're good."

* * *

The next time comes. Fury calls for the Avengers to assemble. Steve puts his uniform on and grabs his shield. He goes out there and leads his team. He fights. He stands tall. Nobody makes a big deal about it. There's no fanfare or accolades or celebration. The team comes home, tired and dusty and beaten up but feeling better and more whole than they have in months. They get themselves cleaned up and gather around the common room and eat expensive take-out. It's like any other time, the aftermath of any other mission. Clint and Tony bicker. Bruce is half-distracted by his work, mumbling about science to Tony. Thor asks question after question about the movie they watch after dinner (driving everyone crazy), and Steve tries to explain, but he doesn't understand either (not really), so Tony tells them they're both pathetic, ignorant fools and takes over. Natasha throws her two cents in here and there, mostly to take Stark down a notch. It's almost like the nightmare never happened. It's almost like the Enchantress never rushed into their lives and shattered them.

It's all still there, of course. Beneath the surface. They all notice any and all awkward pauses in Steve's speech or shifts of his body. They all pretend not to watch when he loses interest in something and stares with glazed eyes at nothing. It's not hard to pull him back. Clint with an arm over his shoulder or a gentle jab to his ribs. Tony with his incessant chatter and blunt reminders to pay attention. Thor with an easy smile. Bruce with a simple "are you okay?" or "you with us, Steve?". Natasha stays close to him, close enough that the others notice. There's this need to protect him now that's never been there before. It's a tad uncomfortable, but it's to be expected. A team protects its own.

And they're a team again beyond any doubt.

They're different, but they're the same, too. In the end, this is the new normal.

* * *

The days pass. Steve starts to measure them with another label. Another bin. Before the serum. Before the war. Before the ice. Before the Avengers. Before the Enchantress.

Before Natasha.

* * *

Steve thinks that if he can _just remember_ how it ended, everything will heal. He'll finally get her and all of her evil out of his mind. He can't move on. He wants to. So desperately he wants to. But he can't. He sees it in his head. Her wild eyes and the knife that cuts into him. He hears her demand. Her order, the order she trained him to follow. _"Tell me you love me. Tell me. Tell me."_

He feels like if he can remember what he said, it'll be over. But that last second is dark and distant, and no matter how he reaches for it, he can't grab it. He can't _see _it. There's truth there. Absolution, maybe. Vindication. Or condemnation. He's not sure what it is because he can't see it.

He feels like if he can remember, the scar on his chest will heal. They're tied together somehow. The dark magic and submission_._ Nothing else has worked. None of Bruce's medicines or procedures. None of Thor's suggestions about clearing his mind and meditation. Ignoring it hasn't worked. Washing it hasn't (was there ever a time they'd been stupid enough to think that would get rid of this?). _Nothing_ has made it better. The word in his chest is as fresh and raw and painful as it was during the moment she made it. The moment he can't remember.

If he could just _know_ if he really did submit…

It frightens him that he might never know.

_Time heals all ills. _Someone said that once. It's one of those things people tell other people who've suffered through trauma. _Time heals all ills. _It's not healing this.

* * *

He loses it on a mission. He comes apart. It's a violent, wild experience, more frightening and unsettling than any flashback or nightmare. The Avengers are sent to dismantle an arms dealer operating out of China. While Bruce, Tony, and Thor contend with the WMDs poised to launch, Clint, Natasha, and Steve raid this bastard's base of operations only to find cages and cages below ground, cages full of children and women. Apparently the son of a bitch isn't just dealing in weapons. These poor victims are there for one reason and one reason only, and it's disgustingly obvious what it is. Steve blanches the minute he sees them with their ripped clothes and sallow faces and terrified eyes and he _knows_. He knows because he's seen that look on his own face, staring back at him in the mirror after a nightmare awful enough to make him throw up, strong enough that it brings him to his knees. The communication link goes dead as he stops answering the team. He gets every single prisoner out of there. _Every one _of them.

And then he goes to the room where Clint and Natasha are holding the arms dealer and his men captive. He's a dark picture of wrath and fury as he stalks inside and tosses his shield. _He goes at them_. His fists fly. His boots break bones. He's causing pain and he's doing it on purpose. He grabs one of the sick bastards by his shirt and throws him into the wall. "You son of a bitch," he snarls in the man's panicked, ugly face. "You like torturing people, huh? You like selling people?" The man is terrified. "You like people on their knees before you, begging?"

"Cap, let him go," Clint calmly orders, grabbing at Steve's shoulder.

"How about I break every bone in your body and then we'll see if you can kneel in front of me?" Steve seethes. They're words that no one could ever _imagine_ coming from Captain America, but this is where they are. It's horrifying.

"Captain, let him down. Stand down," Clint insists. Steve pushes him off, one hand around the arms dealer's throat and squeezing. "Cap, stand down, damn it! Stand down!"

"Steve," Natasha says softly. "Don't do this."

It's hard not to. It's so hard not to. He stares at these men and all he sees are the men who hurt him at her command. Every one of them. He couldn't fight then, but he can now. She's dead and he's not and he can _hurt_ them all now. He wants to. He wants to destroy them because they destroyed him.

He squeezes. Every muscle in his body is hard and his heart is pounding. He could break this man's neck. He could kill them all by himself. _Vengeance. Take it._ He doesn't know if that's his thought or hers. He can't make himself care.

"Steve, this isn't the answer." Natasha's voice cuts through the murderous haze in his head. He knows she's right. _It's not the answer. It's what she wants. _He knows it. His fingers loosen slowly, one at a time, and his breath hisses through clenched teeth. He drops the bastard and backs away. Then he retrieves his shield and leaves. Distance is what he needs. It's the only thing he has.

They go home. The ride back to New York is silent. SHIELD wants a report that no one gives. That night Steve sits on the helipad of the Tower, raw and aching and empty. He wants to be alone. _No, you don't._ He wants… He doesn't know what he wants. He thought he was past this. He thought he was better. But the hell grabbed him and dragged him back just like that. "Go away, Clint," he orders when he hears the fire escape door open behind him.

Clint doesn't go away. He comes and sits down right beside him. He was afraid earlier; he's not ashamed to admit that. But he's not afraid now. "I've been there," he says after a painfully long period of silence. "Well, not there, exactly. But I've killed men for far less. And this?" He cocks an eyebrow, staring out at the humming city beyond them. "Sitting out here alone and on the edge? It's not the answer, either."

He slides an arm across Steve's shoulders. "Small victories, right, Cap? And this wasn't even a small one. This was a big one. A really big one."

Steve swallows a sob and nods.

* * *

Back inside the Tower, the others wait for him. They don't let him even entertain the thought of stepping down as their leader because he's compromised. They don't let him thank them for pulling him back. They tell him to shut up and throw arms around him and food in front of him. He's their captain, and they'll follow him anywhere, even if he breaks every once in a while. Lord knows he deserves that as much as he deserves their support.

They're a family, after all. They're his family, and his family protects him. That's what they're there for.

* * *

Natasha wants more. She's not brave enough to admit that to him. She's hardly even brave enough to tell herself. She wants _more_ from him, but she's terrified of asking. He's given her his trust. He's told her the truth. He's let her care for him. But that's not enough to satisfy this ache inside her. It feels inherently wrong to even think it. It's been months since they rescued Steve, but no amount of time makes what she wants feel acceptable or even appropriate. It's not. It's _wrong._

So she never says anything.

They're still sleeping together all the time. They find each other, even as life resumes its chaotic rush of missions and work and operations for SHIELD. Whenever they can, they sleep next to each other in his bed, her on the left and him on the right. There's distance between them. Inches. She's always afraid, even after all this time, to touch him if he's not ready for it. If he doesn't want it. Sleep is a vulnerable state; she knows that from her own dark past. She justified it before when he needed care, when he _needed_ touch to ground him in safety and security. Now… He doesn't need it. He doesn't need her like he did. So it feels wrong to brush his hair from his brow or be close enough to him to hear his heartbeat under her ear or caress his cheek or hold his hand. She's afraid of triggering something – anything – and hurting him.

And it's wrong to want what she wants. Even if he should say he wants it as well (and she's fairly certain he does), will there ever be a way for her to know for sure he's okay with it? The Enchantress taught him to succumb to this, to engage even if he didn't want it_._ Natasha knows this because Steve has told her in not so many words. She's adept at reading people; she knows she's damn proficient at deducing emotions from body language and detecting answers from glances and reading between the lines. But she doesn't feel confident if she's swept into something she desires this much that she'll be able to read him, or that he'll be honest, and the _last thing_ she wants to do is hurt him.

It's frustrating. She wants him. She wants him back the way he was. She wants the man she wanted before he was kidnapped. She was terrified when the Enchantress took him that that man would be lost without her ever telling him anything about how she felt. She's not certain she can now. He's the same in some ways, in all the ways that matter (she tells herself this, and she knows it's true even if it doesn't satisfy her). After the events in China, he's back to being their leader, confident on the battlefield, strong and ready and able to do anything to save anyone. He's back to an easy smile, back to wearing his compassionate and honest heart on his sleeve. But in other ways, more subtle ways, he's someone else. Someone who's still hurting and unsure. That's the person who lies beside her in the night, the person who still occasionally suffers with a nightmare, the person who gets up before her every morning and is usually gone from his bedroom by the time she awakes. She doesn't trust that person to be honest with her. That person hides a lot from her, the scar across his chest included.

She wants him. And she's afraid of that.

* * *

Fury sends Captain America and Black Widow on a mission. It shouldn't feel so monumental, but it does for both of them. It's the first time they've gone out alone without the comfort of the rest of the team having their backs since they were ambushed and overrun. So it's a major accomplishment, not simply because they take out the terrorists they've been sent to stop without any trouble. They both come home, healthy and whole.

They arrive at the Tower and it's late. She heads to her room, he to his. But after she showers, she goes to him. Just like she has countless times. She finds him emerging from his bathroom, hair damp and dressed for bed. He's happy and relieved, and she can see it. Really see it. And she thinks this isn't her place anymore. Those things she wants in the silence of her heart… She's never going to tell him.

"I'll just…"

"Where are you going?" he asks. The exhausted gleam of elation fades from his eyes, and his smile collapses.

Natasha tries to be strong. She's emotionless. Cold. Heartless and stoic. At least, she always used to be. "Steve, you don't need me anymore. If there was any doubt about you getting better, it's gone now."

"Yeah, but–"

"You don't need me."

"Nat–"

She means to kiss him good night, good-bye, a friendly kiss, a chaste kiss, on his cheek. But he turns in confusion and is _so close_ and her lips brush over his instead. Maybe it isn't an accident. She tries to tell herself it is, because the contact is light and electrifying. She's surprised, and so is he, but he doesn't jerk away and she doesn't let go.

The seconds disappear. Eventually she gets bolder and kisses him harder. She places her hands on his chest and feels the bandages over the scar under his Dodgers t-shirt but she doesn't let that bother her. He's still. She doesn't move any further. She waits.

He pulls back, and she knows she's overstepped her bounds, _violated his trust_, so she looks away in a very uncharacteristic show of shame. "Steve, I–" He brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek. The caress is barely anything, but it's enough to allay her fears. She slides her hands to her shoulders and stands as tall as she can. She kisses him again, deepens it, sliding her tongue into his mouth when he opens it to her. There's nothing ravenous about it. Nothing hungry. It's timid and tender.

He's sitting on the end of his bed then, and she's kneeling in front of him. It's dark and quiet and he's tense. "Is this okay?" she asks.

"I want it to be," he whispers sadly. He closes his eyes as she threads her hands through his hair and pulls him close. "I really want it to be."

"It will be," she promises.

* * *

They move slowly. Very slowly. Sometimes painfully slowly. She surprises herself with her strength and patience. He surprises himself with his.

* * *

The team staggers home after a particularly difficult and tedious mission. They all go their separate ways, wearied and bruised. Natasha and Steve go to his room. He's sore from injured ribs and a twisted knee. She bruised her arm and hip. They're both filthy. But somehow the act of peeling off each other's ripped, dirty uniforms is all they need to finally do more than sleep next to each other.

It starts frantically and passionately. It starts with lust and desire. But it cools as the realization of what's happening begins to sink into them both. "Is this okay?" she asks again as she lays beside him, dressed only in her bra and panties. She's asked him that every step of the way, every moment they've kissed and touched each other over the last months. She's always asked no matter what. "Is it okay if we do this?"

He's not sure. There are a million thoughts racing through his head and he can't grasp and hold onto any of them. He only knows that he _wants_. He wants her. He wants to be free. He wants to let go. "Make me forget her," he finally says, sweeping his thumb down her face.

She plans to. She's wanted to for weeks, for months. She's eager to replace every old memory he has of harsh touches and forced kisses with new ones filled with pleasure and tenderness and _respect_. She climbs on top of him. She tries to push his shirt up, but he stills her hands and shakes his head with a frightened look in his eyes. She stops. "We don't have to–"

"Please," he says. "I want to. I don't want to remember her anymore. Make me forget."

She hesitates for only a moment longer before she sees his confidence. His trust. He knows she won't hurt him. "I love you," she whispers. "So much."

There are things pushing at the edges of his mind. So many things. He doesn't let them in. She kisses him over and over again. "I love you, too," he tells her. The words come so easily. So freely. He gives them to her. "I love you, Nat."

She makes him forget.

* * *

The next morning the Avengers gather in the common room for breakfast. Tony takes one look at Steve and his relaxed posture and contented expression and the slightly dopey smile plastered on his face. He rolls his eyes. "Did you finally bag Black Widow?"

"Not really your business," Steve says, wiping the grin away and digging into his plate of pancakes.

"Holy shit. You did." Tony slaps Steve loudly on the back. "Way to score."

Thor sits across from him. There are still things, colloquialisms and such, that he doesn't understand. "Bag? Score? What is this?" Bruce clears his throat a little and nudges him with half a smirk on his face. Thor's eyes widen then with dawning realization. "Oh. _Oh._"

"Drop it," Steve orders.

"Consider it dropped, Cap," Tony says. But he never drops the relieved smile from his face.

* * *

Bruce runs out of options. His ideas dry up. He's tried everything, and he admits it with an apology and miserable eyes. Steve's not surprised. He's not upset, either. Not really. He's accepted that what she did to him is part of him. So he only clasps Bruce on the shoulder and thanks him. He thanks them all at one time or another for everything they've done for him. He owes them so much more than they know, so much more than he can ever repay. But he has time.

And life goes on.

Time heals all ills.

Small victories won one after another.

A process. This moment to the next.

He draws and colors and fills his life back in. And suddenly none of it bothers him anymore. _None_ of it. It's all becoming a distant memory.

It's been a year since the Enchantress took Steve and the Avengers took him back. Maybe she took his body and his mind and his soul. Maybe she took him, but it doesn't matter. He's alive, and she's dead. He's alive, and she was wrong.

He's alive, and he's surrounded by people who care about him.

* * *

They're spent, happy, the sheets tangled around their sweat-slicked bodies. Natasha lays atop him, gently sliding her wandering fingers over his shirt. He's half asleep. "Steve?"

"Hmm. What?"

She asks, "Can I see it?"

He lazily cracks open his eyes. In the darkness, she looks at him with glimmering pools of blue and green. There's nothing but openness in her gaze, but he hesitates. He knows what she wants. And he's not afraid that she'll hurt him. He's not even afraid that she'll be disgusted by it. They are long past those sorts of doubts. But he's afraid to see it. It's a reminder of something he's long since pushed away and come to terms with and accepted.

"Please," she whispers. He still hesitates. "You trust me."

"Of course I do, Nat. I just…" He's embarrassed to admit it. "I just don't want to go back there."

She smiles. "You don't have to. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't have to be something you hide from me." He winces. "Don't make it a symbol."

"How can it not be?" There's a touch of bitterness in his voice that she immediately hears. Her face fractures in grief, and he's hurt just seeing it. So he quickly does what he can to make it better. "But it doesn't matter." He kisses her softly. "I've moved on."

She kisses him back, but when she pulls away she gives him a certain smile. She knows him too well to be convinced. She knows him too well to not notice when he's lying to himself. "Let me see it, Steve. Show it to me. Please."

He can't bring himself to speak, so he only nods. She sits up a little and takes his shirt and slowly pulls it over his head. She straddles him gently, peeling the tape away from the bandage. His heart is pounding, and he can't breathe except in small, weak pants. It's been so long since he's thought about it, since he's really seen it. In all the times they've made love, he's never taken his shirt off. There are still some defenses he can't make himself abandon.

When the gauze comes away, he can't make himself look at it. The dark places are so close again. But she's there to help him. She's there to keep them away. She always has been. "Look at me," she implores softly. Her eyes are bright and full of love. "It's okay, right?"

He manages a weak grin for her. He's not sure. He wants it to be. "Right."

She touches it tentatively. Her fingers lightly trace the lines and hard edges. He's breathing heavily now. "Does it hurt?"

He swallows thickly and reminds himself of where he is. Of who's with him. It does hurt, but not because of her. Never because of her. "No."

She dips her head and kisses him again. She's gentle as her lips trail down his face and throat and shoulders. Then she kisses it. Lightly. Softly. "Maybe hiding it isn't the answer," she offers. "Maybe us being scared of it… Maybe that's what gives it power. Maybe that's what makes it real. Maybe that's what keeps it from getting better."

"Maybe." He's relaxing under her lips and fingers. _Maybe._

She kisses every part of it. This is her way of trying to heal it. Finally, after all this time, she knows how. "There's no reason to be afraid. There never was. You never submitted, Steve."

"I can't remember."

"You never submitted." She folds their hands together and stares into his eyes. There's no doubt. _"Never."_

He can't get the words out that he wants to say. He can't deny. He can't even tell her how much he loves her. But he doesn't need to. He rolls and takes her with him and locks their mouths together and her legs around him. His heart thunders and his body melts in pleasure and his mind fills with elation. He's alive and she's with him. He's whole. He's hers. This is how it's supposed to end.

* * *

It's morning. He goes to take a shower. The bathroom fills with heavy mist, and the mirror fogs. When he comes out, he dries himself and wraps the towel around his waist and stands at the vanity.

She comes up behind him and slides her arms around him. She presses playful kisses down his back and smiles at him before stepping into the shower herself.

Steve breathes deeply. He brushes his teeth. He brushes his hair. And then he reaches across to wipe the condensation off the mirror.

It takes him a long time while he's staring blankly at his reflection before he notices the scar is gone. It's just _not there_, like it's _never_ been there. There's only smooth skin and strong muscles. His heart. His mind and body and soul. The Enchantress tried to take them, but she couldn't. She never did.

* * *

"Tell me you love me. Tell me."

"No."

"Tell me!"

"You can't make me love you."

"You _will_ tell me."

_No. _"Steven Grant Rogers. SHIELD. Leader of the Avengers." He smiled as he slipped away. "Captain America."

* * *

Steve remembers now. He remembers the one moment. He remembers. He's warm with love. And he's filled with defiance.

**THE END**


End file.
